


Hero of Madness: a Markithriller

by shy_fox



Category: markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Completed, Finito, Gen, Kidnapping, Mild Blood, Murder Mystery, Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-02-16 17:19:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 44,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2278167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shy_fox/pseuds/shy_fox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark Fischbach (popularly known on YouTube as Markiplier) has a secret admirer. Someone has been murdering his most annoying and attentive fans, and the murders are rapidly escalating in both brutality and frequency. </p><p>It's up to Detective Damien Scott Carter, LA's finest (and most sardonic) cop and Mark himself to catch the killer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Interview Room One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ErikaiAndraste](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErikaiAndraste/gifts).



The detective sat across the cold metal table from Mark, the end of his ballpoint pen tapping out a slow even rhythm as he stared. This same man had called Mark down to the station over an hour ago, kept him waiting for almost fifty minutes and then had unceremoniously escorted the confused Mark into Interview Room One where he’d had to wait another twenty minutes. A rapidly-cooling paper cup of the worst coffee Mark had ever tasted was sitting in front of each of them, so far both almost completely untouched as Mark stared at the manila folder that had just been placed in front of him. 

The young man’s eyes looked it over; a big red “EVIDENCE” stamp was forefront. He could see even from its closed position that big glossy photographs had been stuffed unceremoniously into the folder, and lifted his eyes to see the detective studying him for a reaction. Mark quickly dropped his eyes again, wondering if he dare open the folder. He was shaken from his study of the folder by the detective’s voice reverberating slightly in the tiled room. “I suppose you’re wondering why I called you down here.”

A nervous laugh rose from within Mark, a smartass quip at the ready but the detective cut him off by tapping his pen on the folder. “This folder contains certain photographs of a crime scene. I want you to look at them carefully, and tell me if you recognise anything you see.” Mark’s eyes widened a little; did this stuff actually happen outside of movies? He didn’t have long to wonder because the detective reached across the cool metal tabletop and opened the folder to reveal the pictures contained within in all of their gory detail. Mark’s first reaction was nausea. He had never dealt well with the sight of blood, and the pictures on the table showed a lot of it. His world spun and he slumped, vision fading as he fainted.

He could only have been out for a couple of seconds because he woke up to the detective waving the smell of the coffee at him, and Mark straightened and averted his eyes from the photographs as he swallowed a few times to try and fight the bile rising in his throat. Only after he was sure he wasn’t going to throw up did he look back, taking in a few details before he had to look away again and cover his eyes with his hand. “Do you recognise anything in these pictures, Mr Fischbach?” the detective kept his voice low, but there was a hint of frustration and urgency about it. Again he tapped the tabletop in front of Mark, causing him to look at the pictures again and really force himself to focus. “Hey… that’s my symbol!”

A series of chunks had been carved out of the victim’s chest, a crude fleshy homage of the simplified M shape that Mark used as his symbol on his YouTube channel. The detective nodded his pen finally blissfully still. “That’s why we called you down here, Mr Fischbach. We believe there’s a connection.” Mark swallowed again, hand shaking as it reached for the now-cold cup of terrible coffee. Did they suspect him? He drank without really tasting, eyes roaming across the pictures. There were more photos, and they weren’t all of the same person; the only thing that tied them together was that same M carved into their chests. 

He looked up to see the detective studying him again, and Mark put down the coffee cup so he could poke through the photographs. He focused on one in particular, a young woman who only sported shallow cuts in squares. “Why does this one have shallower cuts than the others?” The detective shrugged. “Our psychologists think that victim was among the first. The progression shows that he’s getting bolder… and that he’s getting a taste for it. You can see how he’s started ripping the chunks out and taking them with him.” Mark looked back up at the detective, meeting his eyes and seeing a look of rapidly-fading suspicion. “And… what’s happening to those… chunks?” He couldn’t believe he was asking, but the detective cleared his throat and looked down for a second. “We believe that he’s... he’s eating them.”

Mark started to feel faint again, and reached for the coffee again. “You don’t suspect me, do you?” As he spoke a phone chirped, and the detective glanced at it. “Not any more. You’ve just been cleared. You’re lucky you live a bachelor lifestyle Mr Fischbach, or the bartender at your local wouldn’t remember you.” Mark breathed an unconscious sigh of relief; it was short-lived, however, as the detective tapped the photographs again. “Do you recognise any of these people?” Mark forced himself to look at the pictures again, focusing on the faces. “This one… and this one… and that one too… these ones I don’t recognise… now her, I know. She was the nurse who put in some stitches a few months ago when I fell off a bike… she was a fan. I signed her scrubs. I wrote ‘shut up nurse’… now she’s dead.” 

The detective jotted down a few notes, his hand moving rapidly across the page. Mark didn’t even really see him writing, he was too busy remembering the nurse. She’d been so nice to him, and even snuck him food even though he’d only been in for stitches, and now she was dead. He was unable to be alone with his thoughts because the detective started talking again, saying something about police watches and being careful who he trusted. Mark tried hard to focus: surely it was important. The only thing he could think about was that he was the obsession of a goddamn serial killer. 

The detective pushed a card towards him. “My phone number. Call me if there’s absolutely anything you need any time, especially if the killer tries to contact you.” Mark took the card, and turned to look as someone knocked on the door. An angry looking patrolman opened the door and blurted “Detective! We’ve got another one.”


	2. The Crime Scene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: all of my knowledge of police practises and operations has been gained from the mother of all incorrect procedures, various cop shows. Enjoy!

Detective Damien Scott Carter stared at the uniformed cop who had butted into his questioning session, his mind working at a million miles an hour trying to connect dots that weren’t there. Almost as an afterthought he looked across the table at the man he’d been questioning, who was sitting there staring back with a mixed expression of terror and confusion. “You can go, Mr Fischbach. I’ll have a uniform officer take you home and make sure it’s safe for you to remain there.” Damien rose, his back complaining a little after being stationary in the uncomfortable interview room chair for so long, and held out his hand to Mark. “Thanks for your time and don’t forget to call.”

Mark shook the detective’s hand and left, escorted out by the uniformed officer, and Damien swore under his breath. It had been a promising lead, but it had been just a little too obvious. The detective took a second, his hands busy packing up the photos spread messily across the cold metal interview table, and organised his mind to focus on what he had to do next. He looked without seeing at each of the photographs; he knew every detail in every picture already. He paused when he got to the last photo showing the earliest victim, a chill going up his spine. That had been the first scene he’d attended on the case, before they’d known it was a serial killer. “And cannibal.” Damien muttered to himself as he slid the photograph into the folder. 

The detective dumped the folder and his interview notes unceremoniously on his desk on the way past, grabbing the address of the crime scene from the top and his car keys from the drawer and then pausing for a second as he tried to decide if he should bring his gun. Damien Scott Carter was famous among the other officers for two reasons: no one knew if ‘Scott’ was his middle name or part of his surname, and he never had his gun when he needed it. 

As he paused he could almost feel the anticipation of his colleagues, and grumblingly took the gun and shoulder holster from his desk. There were a few chuckles and sighs, and Damien couldn’t resist snapping “come on guys have some decency, people have died” as he buckled the holster on and placed the gun inside. He grabbed his keys and jacket in one hand and a fresh notepad in the other, heading out to his car with one of his nasty headaches coming on.

The crime scene was far outside of town. As he drove Damien mused, trying to force his way through the puzzle of the serial killings; what was Mark Fischbach’s connection to the killer? Damien had seen a few of the man’s videos and thought they were mildly amusing but fundamentally pointless. Certainly nothing worth killing over. He muttered something incomprehensible to himself about the psychology of killers and shoved his thoughts away to concentrate on driving, the stress headache in the back of his head growing.

The detective spotted a uniformed police officer standing at the entrance to a driveway, yellow police-line tape flapping in a slight wind. He pulled up and flashed his badge, and the uniformed officer pulled the tape up so he could drive under it. The driveway was overgrown, hard to tell from the surrounding landscape; it had clearly been abandoned for a long time. As he slowly drove Damien’s eyes swept the scrubland, taking in the uniforms doing an on-foot search for evidence. That wasn't a good sign if they were already out.

The building at the end of the driveway set off Damien's cop-sense as soon as he saw it; it was clearly an abandoned swimming pool, the exterior concrete walls still sporting paint in the shape of dolphins and whales. The remote location and abandoned nature of the building meant that it was perfect for a murder and the amount of water that naturally ended up in abandoned swimming pools would obliterate any traces. Damien just hoped whoever had been killed had died somewhere dry.

As he parked and exited his car he noticed the door was off its hinges and all the windows were smashed out, meaning lots of non-serial-killer trespassers had been around and groaned as his headache throbbed; it was going to be a nightmare to collect any kind of forensic evidence. The detective made his way into the building reluctantly and managed to get lost twice before he found the crime scene - annoyingly, in the middle of the large lap pool. 

The coroner was standing thigh-deep in stagnant water wearing a very flattering pair of rubber fishing trousers, clipboard and pen in hand. The body was floating in a pool of fetid water from the half-open ceiling above, and the first thing that Damien noticed was that the head was missing but there was no blood in the pool. Even from the edge of the pool Damien could see the chunks of flesh missing from the chest and he looked around for the ladder to climb into the pool alongside the coroner. It was in the shallow end, as well as several pairs of rubber trousers just waiting for him, and the detective gave a small shudder at the prospect and instead crouched by the deep end. "Hello Glen."

The coroner glanced up at him and then looked back down at his clipboard. "Detective." Damien shifted his gaze to the body. "Same as always, huh?" Glen just nodded, continuing to write. After another minute Damien tried again. "Ready to talk yet?" 

Glen sighed and tucked his pen into the top of his clipboard. "I suppose." In some ways Damien was reminded of Marvin, the depressing robot from Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The man certainly resembled a depressed robot with an almost non-human face and a monotone voice. Glen took a breath and tapped the clipboard. "As far as I can determine the victim was killed last night between 11pm and 4am, but the water and... lack of a head... complicates things. I'll have a real answer when I get back to the lab... you can see the cuts, of course." 

Damien nodded, focusing on the cuts in the chest; they were deep, and there was no sign of the missing flesh anywhere on the scene. "They were inflicted post-mortem, like the others, with the same kind of knife." Damien blinked, opening his mouth to ask what the cause of death was but Glen got there first. "He was strangled, from behind, like the others... it was a thin cord so it cut in deep. I'm thinking some kind of electrical cord." Damien looked around; there was no such cord in sight. 

Glen saw him look and nodded. "He wasn't killed here. He was brought here and dumped, and I think the head was taken while he was here." Damien raised an eyebrow. "Dumped and beheaded? That's new." He pulled his notebook from his pocket and started making notes. Glen tapped his clipboard again. "You might also be interested to know that I found grey fibers in the chest cuts but not the neck wound. They seem to be from carpet but I need to take a closer look at them." 

Damien nodded and looked back at the corpse. "Any idea who he is?" Glen shrugged. "No ID on him and the missing head precludes any kind of face recognition or dentals but he's got a tattoo on his arm that might be able to help identify him." Glen picked up the arm and made the corpse drift a little in the water. It was a small dragon tattoo, picked out with bright colours. The distance was too great for him to see it properly from the edge of the pool but he knew he'd get a picture of it later. 

The detective stood, stretching slightly as his back complained again, and looked at his phone to check the time. He jumped when it started ringing nearly dropping it into the pool, but managed to hold onto it and instead answered it. "Detective Damien Scott Carter speaking." The voice on the other end of the phone was clearly freaking out but trying to hide it. "Detective this is Mark Fischbach... you said to call you if the killer made contact with me and holy hell DID THEY MAKE CONTACT." 

Damien gaped a little; he hadn't actually expected the killer to contact the object of his affection. "He left me a present, Detective..." Damien blinked and quickly told him "whatever you do, don't touch it. I'm on my way now, there'll be a patrol car there within minutes." There was a relieved sigh on the other end followed by a thankyou and Damien hung up, nodding quickly to Glen as he headed from the room and back out through the weaving maze of corridors and into the light. 

Once he was back in his car he radioed for a patrol car to be sent to Mark's place before he headed off down the drive, grating at the slow pace. The officer from before lifted the tape for him again and he was surprised to see a group of reporters crowding around setting up for their news reports. "The jackals are getting quicker. They must have been tipped off." Damien groaned and forced his car through the pack, ignoring their tapping on his window clamouring for comments from him. Once he hit the main road he was able to stick his lights on and speed back into the city as his brain turned the new developments over and over examining it from every angle. It was unusual for an obsessed serial killer to wait for so long to contact the object of their affection; the murderer had killed at least a dozen people by now, but had only just worked up the courage to start contacting Mark? It didn't add up.

The patrol car was easy to spot outside Mark's apartment block and Damien was able to pull in beside them and flick his lights off. A curious crowd had gathered, and more people were turning up at the sight of the second cop car (plainclothed as it was), and so Damien grabbed his phone from the charging cradle and quickly headed inside. He flashed his badge at the patrolman standing at the door of the apartment and was allowed through the door, spotting Mark sitting on his couch with his head in his hands but he glanced up when the detective arrived. Damien nodded to him and looked around; it was a nice apartment, he had to admit, but he wasn't there to admire the architecture.

"Detective. Up here." Damien looked up and saw the other patrolman leaning over the bannister. He climbed the spiral staircase and followed the patrolman across the landing towards what looked to be some kind of office. He didn't have time to look at the room details beyond the black soundproofed walls, instead focusing his whole attention on the severed head sitting neatly in a box on the chair in front of the computer. It had clearly been wrapped up in giftwrap and there was a bow discarded on the floor next to it. "From what we can determine, it was waiting here for him when he got home after visiting the station. He opened it but he didn't touch it." The patrolman was doing his best to be helpful, and Damien pulled out his phone to make a call. "Good work officer... Detective Damien Scott Carter here, badge number 94566 requesting a CSU." He gave Mark's address and then hung up, looking around the room and taking in the details. "No signs of forced entry?"

The officer shook his head. "No, sir. We checked every possible mode of access... the windows were all locked, none of them had been opened for months and the majority of them face other apartments. The front door was still locked when he got home, and there's no signs of tampering with the lock that I could see... no cameras at the building entrance either." Damien peered out between the curtains, taking in the view of another close-by apartment block, and nodded. "This is going to be a hard one to crack unless we get lucky and find a print or a witness. Alright, you and your partner go out and canvas the neighbours. See if they saw or heard anything. I'll interview Mark." The officer nodded and left the room as Damien took another look around. He curiously poked at the soundproof foam on the walls for a few seconds, admiring their sponginess, before making his way out of the room and closing the door behind him.


	3. At Home With Markiplier

Mark kept his head in his hands as he heard the uniform cop come down the stairs, trying to control the panic welling up inside him. As bad as it was having a murderous stalker, he’d believed he was safe in his own home and now that he’d been proved wrong his world was starting to crumble. 

 

There were more sounds but Mark didn’t look. Suddenly there was a glass being shoved into his hands and startled he peered up to see the detective offering him a glass of water. The detective seated himself on the couch beside Mark and pulled his notebook and a pen out of his pocket. “So. Tell me what happened.” Mark sipped the water, hands shaking. “I came home and let myself in. I went to put my phone on the charger in the kitchen but the cable was missing… so I went upstairs to use the charger in my office and that’s when I saw the box.” 

 

He finished the water as Damien made notes. The detective glanced up at the door. “Was the door unlocked when you came in?” Mark shook his head. “No, everything was still locked up tight.” The detective got up and prowled around, eyeing the open-plan kitchen with interest. “The charger was missing from the kitchen, you say?” Mark nodded, clearing his throat before he affirmed “yeah”. The detective approached the counter. “Here?” 

 

Mark got up and indicated the spot where his charger was usually plugged in. “I wouldn’t read too much into it detective, it goes missing about four times a day. It’ll probably turn up in my car or something.” He put the glass beside the sink and turned back to see Damien peering at the electrical outlet. The detective quickly turned and asked “are you positive?” but wasn’t able to elaborate as the uniformed officer at the door cleared his throat. “Detective, the CSU you requested has arrived.”

 

The pair of officers, carrying big black briefcases, bustled in and looked around. Damien went to meet them and Mark leaned back against the bench to watch them. The detective took them upstairs towards his office, and Mark rubbed his eyes as he tried his hardest not to think about what was waiting up there. Feeling nausea rise again he leaned over the sink, watching the tap drip slowly as he tried to fight the urge to vomit and slowly won. When he turned around the officer by the door was watching him with concern, and Mark offered the uniformed man a weak smile as he headed back to his couch.

 

The officer glanced over his shoulder to check for people before addressing Mark. “I know this is a really bad time but I’m a big fan of yours. Your videos are hilarious.” Mark gave him another tired smile. “Well thank you, always nice to meet fans.” The officer nodded and turned his head again, looking back down the empty hallway for a long minute before starting again. “I mean, I don’t get a lot of downtime between shifts but I spend that watching your videos. Your long let’s plays are my favourite… I can’t believe this shit is happening to you, you’re such a nice guy.” Mark managed a grin but didn’t say anything, and the officer nodded a few times before turning back to face the hallway. Feeling restless Mark stood up again and went to look out his window. 

 

Below there was a crowd of people being kept at bay by a pair of uniformed police officers. It was mostly journalists, he noticed, and inwardly groaned; he was going to be on the damn news. A figure stuck out for him, standing at the back of the crowd like a shadow. If he hadn’t been so high up he would have completely missed seeing them, certainly they were invisible to the police at the front of the crowd. But there was something about them that drew his eye. They were standing there at the back of the crowd gazing up at the apartment block, seemingly staring directly at him. 

 

It was hard to describe them; they were wearing a dark hoodie with the hood up covering their hair, even in the warmth of the sunny day, and big sunglasses. From that distance Mark couldn’t tell if they were male or female and pulled his phone from his pocket to take pictures. He managed to take one, but it was as though the strange hooded figure sensed that he was capturing their image because they turned on their heel and walked quickly away down the street. They disappeared around the corner before Mark could take another picture, and he checked the one he’d taken; impossible to see any kind of identity. He didn’t delete it, just in case.

 

The detective came down the stairs again, breaking Mark’s concentration as he apologised for the interruption. Damien joined him at the window looking down at the crowd below and he made a derisive noise through his nose. “Bunch of squabbling scavenging scum. Just ignore them, they don’t know you’re involved and I’d like to keep it that.” He shifted from foot to foot before turning away from the window and returning to the couch. “So you saw the box and then what?” 

 

Mark glanced out of the window at the crowd below one last time and then joined the detective on the couch. “I was staring at it for a while, I guess. I decided to open it and there it was. Just sitting there staring up at me.” He shuddered again, managing to ask “do you know who it is?” Damien shook his head. “No ID yet… but from the looks of things, it belongs to the body we found earlier.” Damien stretched slightly and checked the time; it was getting late but he couldn’t leave until the CSU he’d called was finished with the head in the box. The detective was very eager to see who the head belonged to, and there was no better way to find out if the head and body belonged together than to stick around. 

 

Mark realised that he hadn’t offered people drinks, and got up to wander into the kitchen. “Coffee, detective?” he grabbed cups and paused briefly; it seemed as though there was a mug missing. However he couldn’t be sure, and after the day he’d had he didn’t want to make an issue of it when the missing mug was probably in his office or bedroom. Instead he shrugged slightly and went about making coffee for himself, the detective still making notes on the couch and the uniformed officer standing by the door. He wondered about bringing some to the officers upstairs but Damien seemed to read his mind. “They won’t want any. Officer Hutchinson is on a caffeine-free detox and officer Maloney never drinks anything while she’s on duty.” Mark nodded; at least they were nice and easy, with less cups to wash later. 

 

As though they’d been summoned by their names, the CSU officers came down the stairs carrying their briefcases and a bunch of evidence bags. One was carrying a black box stamped with ‘Coroner’ which probably contained the head. The other one came over and spoke quietly to Damien, and he just stood there staring at her. Finally he shook himself from his daze. “Are you positive?” the CSU officer nodded. “We’re positive, detective.” She excused herself and the two officers headed out. Damien just stood there, apparently too shocked to move; as Mark approached he seemed to pull himself out of it and patted his pockets down for his notebook. “Two…” Mark raise an eyebrow. “Two?” Damien nodded, apparently forgetting who he was talking to. “Two bodies with two severed heads. The ones we’ve found don’t match.” He seemed to realise what he was saying because he stopped and turned to look at Mark, who just sipped his coffee and stared. 

 

The detective cleared his throat awkwardly and closed his notebook. “Thank you for your time, Mr Fischbach. Don’t worry about a thing. There’ll be a security detail looking after you… please don’t speak to anyone, especially not journalists, about the case. I don’t want case details getting out there… is there someone you can call to come and stay with you for a while? Some friends, maybe?” Mark nodded; he knew just the guys to call. Damien pocketed his notebook and rubbed the back of his neck; he was clearly sore after all this running around. Mark thanked him and saw him out, feeling nervous when he took the uniformed cop with him. The promise of a security detail gave him a small measure of comfort but he couldn’t help but dart his eyes around his place before he grabbed his phone to make some very important phone calls.


	4. Victims Squared

Detective Damien Scott Carter returned to his office and plopped down at his desk, brain mired in fog. Two victims? The killer was escalating far beyond what their profiler had predicted, and was doing it far too quickly. Damien poked his desktop screen to turn it on and stared at his desktop background. “Two…?” he grabbed his mouse and aimlessly rolled it over a few applications, still reeling mentally. He shook himself and shrugged out of his jacket, fingers fumbling with his shoulder holster straps. He unceremoniously dumped his gun back in his desk drawer and nudged it shut with his foot, staring at his screen. The detective was still staring at it minutes later when his phone rang, and he didn’t pick it up right away. When he did he was barely listening and only managed to catch the words “morgue” and “half an hour”. Damien managed to shake himself out of his stupor and made some kind of agreement noise before hanging up. He scratched his head and then rubbed his eyes; he needed coffee. 

 

The break room coffee was famous for being bad: it was always over-boiled and shared its consistency with tar.  Every cop worth his badge knew that the only place to get a coffee was the Whispering Bean (referred to as “Whispers”) Cafe. Grabbing his various important items like wallet and phone Damien headed for the stairs in a vague fog. 

 

Despite its normal popularity Whispers was practically empty at that time of day; the worst time to come was first thing in the morning. There were a few uniformed officers scattered around but Damien mostly ignored them and instead headed like a zombie towards the counter. The barista, a very cheerful black man who slung coffee almost as fast as he made jokes, looked up. “Hey it’s my favourite detective!” Damien couldn’t help but smile: the whole precinct was made up of his favourite detectives and officers. He took a seat at the counter and rubbed his head again, mumbling something about coffee and pastries: the barista was used to dealing with caffeine-deprived cops and set about making him a big cup of coffee and fetching him a plate of assorted tiny pastries.

 

The coffee was hot and strong, and Damien felt his vague fog lift quickly. Facts started coming forwards to be analysed and he quickly grabbed his notebook and started writing. It was messy and chaotic but the ideas were there. When he was done he looked back at the several pages of notes he’d made, tapping his pen against the paper as he mulled over the facts. Sometime during his mad scribble a plate of tiny pastries had been delivered and he gratefully grabbed a tiny eclair as he stared at what he considered the most important facts. The missing phone charger from the kitchen was bugging him, Damien decided as he licked cream off his finger. Despite what Mark had said about it going missing several times a week, it seemed far too unlikely when he considered that the victim from the pool had been strangled with some kind of electrical cord. The mostly likely explanation was that it had been Mark’s phone charger that had been used as the weapon in that murder… which mean that the killer had broken into the YouTuber’s apartment between murders and left their grisly gift. 

 

The break-in was something that greatly puzzled the detective; it seemed to be completely out of character. The serial killer had been on what can only be assumed to be a murderous high after the first slaughter, and yet they had the ability to get into the apartment with a large box, steal the phone charger, and then go out again leaving no evidence and then go on to commit another planned murder? It didn’t add up for Damien. The more he thought about it he had to admit that it made more sense for the second murder, where the body had been dumped at the swimming pool, to have been committed almost on a whim. The murder of annoying fans was certainly something the killer had shown they were capable of doing before; what if the first murder had been deliberately committed and planned out, and the second had simply been a crime of opportunity? That made far more sense than murder, break in, murder. He stopped tapping his pen as a thought struck him: there might have been witnesses to the second crime. Security camera footage, maybe, if they were lucky. With a small smile the detective made a note to start canvassing for witnesses and circled it a few times for good measure, grabbing another of the tiny pastries on the plate as he drained the cup of coffee.

 

The good-natured barista appeared in front of him and asked if he wanted a refill but Damien shook his head; enough time had passed that he wouldn’t look over-eager to get into the morgue, and he was much more alert now he’d had coffee. Finishing his pastry he pocketed the notebook and tucked his pen behind his ear, whistling a few notes as he grabbed the last one and handed cash to the barista. The detective winked at the other man and slipped a couple of notes into the tip jar, heading out to visit the headless bodies of the victims of a serial killer feeling faintly cheerful and almost definitely a little bit optimistic for the first time in a long while. 

*

The morgue smelled the same as always: formaldehyde fumes always wafted out of the place despite the best efforts of the industrial air conditioning system. Shivering slightly Damien wished he’d remembered to bring his jacket; it was still sitting draped over the back of his chair upstairs. He grabbed a surgical gown and glasses to prevent contamination and used his ID badge to pass through the metal door. The place was as clean as always and he breathed through his mouth to stop his eyes watering from the smell of the chemicals. The technician frowned at him over the body, her eyes darting up to the large clock on the wall that showed he was approximately twenty seconds late. Damien shrugged and grabbed a pair of gloves as the technician started her evidence presentation. “This is the body from the scene you attended… we have yet to find the head. It’s surmised from the usual factors that death occurred between eleven pm to one am last night, most likely from strangulation… see the marks on the neck, below the cut.” Damien nodded, dutifully gazing at the marks indicated. He couldn’t help himself; he looked a few centimeters up at the ragged wound where the head had been taken off. 

 

The technician saw him looking and moved her hand to indicate the wound. “This is very interesting. The head was removed with a large, fairly blunt kitchen knife similar to the one that made the wounds on the other victims… see how the edges are ragged? That means the killer sawed it off.” She looked up to see Damien looking troubled, and hastened to add “... after he was dead, of course.” Damien shook his head. “I’m not worried about that. Are you totally sure on that time of death?” The tech shrugged. “The whole thing was complicated by the pool water where he was found and the missing head. I can tell you he’d been dead and exsanguinated for several hours before he was dumped at the pool.” Damien almost bit a fingernail but remembered at the last second he was wearing latex gloves. “That throws my whole timeline off by a good few hours…” he resisted the urge to rub his head and instead gazed up into space to think. The time still ruled out Mark as the killer, that much was certain; he’d left the bar after 2am, and the bartender had been sure that he hadn’t left the whole night. Assuming that the YouTuber didn’t go for a little late-night serial killing out in the scrubland, he was pretty much clear of the pool murder. 

 

The technician clicked her fingers to get his attention. “We’re not done yet, Detective.” Damien blinked a bit and then followed the technician to a smaller pedestal under a light. “This is the head we retrieved from Mr Fischbach’s apartment. It’s the head of a young woman, twenty-three or twenty-four. Notice anything interesting about her?” the detective prowled around the pedestal a little, tilting his own head as he examined the decapitated one before him. Something about it seemed off, and he frowned as he leaned closer. “The eyes are gone…” The technician nodded and told him “the eyes and tongue were in the bottom of the box underneath the head, laid out in an almost ceremonial style, and the brain is gone. A lot of care was taken to prepare this girl properly….” Damien stared at the head and the technician continued. “Care and time, actually. This one’s been dead at least two weeks.” Damien grabbed his notebook and furiously scribbled notes down. He looked up again and asked “any chance of an ID?” The tech shrugged. “We’re running dentals but her teeth are too good to need anything that might identify her right away.” Damien made a few more notes, taking in the colour of the hair especially and the tiny hole in the side of her nose that could have been from a piercing. As he stared he realised that someone had done her makeup to try and make her look as lifelike as possible and shuddered. 

 

He pocketed his notebook and pen and looked at the tech. “Anything else?” The technician nodded and beckoned him over to a microscope. “These are the fibers we found on the pool boy… Miguel traced it to a brand of carpet used mostly in cars. It’s too widely-used to know what kind of car exactly, but you’d be looking for something mid-priced with grey carpet, probably with a large trunk.” Damien scoffed; that described practically every car in the city. The technician shrugged. “Just add it to the list of evidence. Who knows, it might break the case wide open.” Damien rolled his eyes but wrote it down anyway, and a picture was shoved into his hands. “The dragon tattoo on pool boy. You might be able to track down where he got his ink done and with it who he is. Or we might get lucky and find his head.” Damien risked another look at the headless man lying motionless on the slab behind the technician and shuddered. 

 

He thanked the tech who just shrugged and turned away, and the detective headed out of the morgue feeling somewhat angry: the bodies had been absolutely no help at all. Damien stripped off his gloves and washed his hands in the sink outside the morgue, disposing of his surgical gown and glasses appropriately as his head whirled. He needed time to think and muse and hopefully come up with some solutions, but before that he had to corral some uniforms to get them to canvas for anyone who might have seen pool boy disappear. The detective swore under his breath: despite his best effort, he’d picked up the nickname for the body. Trying to remind himself that it was a murdered human being who deserved justice, and that it wasn’t the dead man’s fault he’d been found floating in an abandoned swimming pool, the detective headed off to find some uniforms and then go for a nice long walk in a park. 


	5. Best Friends Arrive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay guys, I'm doing final exams right now and I don't have much downtime. The next update will be after the 28th of November sometime after I catch up on my sleep.

There was a loud noise. Something insistent. What was it? The doorbell? The phone? Nevermind, it was gone anyway.

 

Suddenly a different sound; knocking. That wasn’t likely to go away.

 

Things started to click as Mark slowly woke, opening his eyes to the semi-darkness of an early morning quietly peeking through his window. He groaned and stretched; he’d fallen asleep on the couch and his body was stiff. “Coming, coming…” he rubbed his face and sat up, sleepily looking around his apartment in the darkness. He focused on the LED clock display on his microwave: 5:03 am. Wondering who the hell thought it was a good idea to bang on his door at 5am, he slid his feet off the couch and wandered over to the door to find out.

 

Mark barely had time to register the two people standing on his doorstep before he was pulled out of his home by Wade and into a manly hug. “You big goof why didn’t you answer the door?” Too shocked to reply right away Mark tried to push away from his friend. “Because it’s 5-freaking-o'clock and who the hell turns up at 5-freaking-o’clock?” He was met with two concerned looks and Bob spoke up. “You said you didn’t care what time we turned up, and that you’d be up no matter what… not to mention you were going to pick us up at the airport at 4…” Mark grunted again and rubbed his eyes, mumbling something about falling asleep on the couch waiting for them.

 

He backed into his apartment and flicked on the lights, letting his friends inside and shutting the door. Mark felt their eyes on him as he quickly locked and barred it, and turned to face them slowly. They were both watching him with concern but politely looked away and followed him towards the couch and tv. 

 

He knew that it had been a weird request for them to come and stay because he was in danger and not ask questions on the phone, but both of them had accepted that he couldn’t talk about it and had instead dropped everything to come and be with him. Mark sat down and was joined by Wade and Bob, and they both waited for him to start with that explanation he’d promised. He cleared his throat. “I… have a stalker… who’s also a serial-killer.”

 

There was a stunned silence for about five seconds, and then Wade burst into laughter. “That’s got to be the worst excuse I’ve ever heard you give.” Bob and Mark just stared at him, and slowly his laughter dried up as he realised. Bob frowned at him. “You know those guys in that car I was talking to outside? They were cops. Mark has a police detail on him to protect him. They were checking we were who we said we were.” Wade couldn’t even speak for a minute, looking ashamed.

 

Mark nodded a few times and rubbed his face again. “The killer broke in here and left me a fucking decapitated human head in a box. It was just sitting there in my office, in my damn recording chair like some kind of sick present. I haven’t had the nerve to go back in there yet.” Bob nodded sympathetically and Wade leaned back, looking ill. “The police are aggressively investigating the murders, obviously, but until they catch the guy I’m pretty much on lockdown and I didn’t want to be alone.” 

 

Wade and Bob exchanged looks and then both nodded at Mark who offered them a weak smile and then yawned. He rubbed his eyes sleepily and got up to start the process of making up the guest bedroom and couch for his friends, but they each grabbed the sheets out of his hands. “It’s ok buddy we got this.” Bob grinned at him and Wade nodded his agreement. “You go to bed and try to get as much sleep as you can.” Mark mumbled something and headed upstairs, passing his office with a small shudder and crawling into bed without further argument or thought, leaving his friends to exchange looks. 

 

*

 

When Mark came downstairs the next morning he was greeted by the sight of Wade sleeping face-down on the couch with his butt in the air and Bob puttering in the kitchen. Bob gave him a small wave and jerked his head at the coffee-maker. Mark approached and found a hot cup waiting for him, and took it gratefully. Bob was frowning into a cupboard, and Mark looked around him to see what he was staring at; the cupboard held at least twenty boxes of cereal. Bob looked at him questioningly and Mark shrugged. “I like cereal.” Bob snorted. “You like cereal too much. There’s literally no other food in the house, except for milk, a jar of olives and beer.” Mark sipped his coffee and made no comment.

 

At that point Wade snorted and sat up, rubbing his face. He stretched and looked over at Bob and Mark and then looked up at the cupboard full of cereal. “That looks like a sensible amount of cereal.” Mark grinned. “See? Wade agrees.” Bob rolled his eyes and muttered something about needing real food as Wade stretched and Mark rubbed the back of his neck. “I should probably get some recordings done. Can one of you help me get that chair out of my office?” Bob nodded and the two of them went upstairs as Wade took over the kitchen. As he climbed Mark couldn’t help but smile: even with a cannibalistic serial killer out there, his friends could always make him feel better.

 

Mark spent the rest of the morning making videos sitting in his editing chair, forgetting about the last couple of days of fear in the face of doing what he loved. After he finished editing and rendering he went downstairs feeling relaxed to find Wade watching tv and texting. Looking around he was unable to spot Bob and so jumped over the back of the couch to land next to his friend. “Where’s Bob?” Wade didn’t look up from his phone. “He said he was going out for some ‘real’ food. I guess he didn’t want to eat cereal for every meal.” Mark had sudden horrible feeling. “What if he got… got… by the killer?” Wade looked up from his phone and blinked. “Oh shit.”

 

There was a knock on the door and Mark’s mouth popped open: it was probably the cops. He was too afraid to move so Wade got up and cracked the door open a little. He snorted and opened it fully to reveal Bob, not murdered and thoroughly uneaten. He elbowed his way past Wade through the door and bustled over to the kitchen, putting the bags of groceries he was carrying on the bench and turning to face his friends. Bob took in their shocked looks and his expression became confused. “What?”

 

Wade closed the door and went over to rummage in the bags. “Mark thought you were dead.” Mark jumped and made spluttered noises of indignation, before slowly tapering off and then nodding sadly. Bob laughed. “No just getting some non-cereal food. How do you live solely on cereal?” Mark rubbed his head. “I go out for food a lot, not so much lately… it’s easier than cooking.” He got up and went to adjust the blinds; the sunlight was reflecting off the apartment windows across from his and it always gave him a headache. 

 

As he looked down he could make out someone standing in the alley between the apartment buildings; they were wearing a grey hoodie with the hood up and a pair of big sunglasses. It was the same person that had creeped him out so much while the police were there, he was sure of it. They were staring right at his window again, and he felt around for his phone to take another picture; it was over on the couch and he rushed to grab it, but by the time he’d gone over, grabbed his phone and come back with his camera ready the grey hoodie had disappeared from sight. 

 

Mark leaned against the window and made a mental note to keep an eye out for the grey hoodie and then jumped and swore when his phone went off. It was a message from Yamimash: he said he’d have a few hours to record a collab that afternoon if Mark was free. With a grin Mark quickly replied to the affirmative and grabbed a handful of the chips that Bob had just put out in a bowl. “Gonna do a collab this afternoon with Yami, he finally got time. Do you guys wanna play with us?” He shoved the whole handful into his mouth and Bob laughed at him. He turned to face Wade with his mouth full of chips and tried to grin; the delicious crispy saltiness were taking up the whole lower half of his face and he couldn’t do more than crinkle his eyes and have a little peak in the corners.

 

Bob started laughing harder and Wade stuffed his own handful of chips into his mouth and tried to grin back. Several of his crumbled and he managed to spew crumbs all over the place, which only made Bob laugh even harder and Mark start to make a choked-off laughing sound. He grabbed more chips and started trying to fit them into his mouth as Bob started begging them to stop and Wade spewed more crumbs and then started chewing. 

  
Mark managed to fit more chips in and wiped at the drool coming from the corner of his mouth, making conversational noises through the chip filter as Wade and Bob dissolved into hysterics. The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon messing around until it was time to go and make YouTube content with Yami.


	6. A Nasty Surprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry this took so long. Life got in the way.
> 
> But now I have no more uni and a job I love in my industry, so hopefully things will settle and I'll be able to churn out chapters as fast as I can type.
> 
> This chapter is extra long to make it up to you about the wait. Enjoy!

Mark stretched and yawned, eyes glancing at the corner of the screen to check the time. The four of them had been recording for at least three hours and the stress, mostly forgotten in the face of having fun with his friends, was starting to return. The other three were trying to figure out if they should stop for the night or keep going but Bob took one look at Mark and shook his head. “We should probably finish up. Mark hasn’t eaten anything in ages.” Mark shrugged noncommittally: he never seemed to get hungry when he was having fun and he was always having fun.

 

Bob and Wade excused themselves and went downstairs to start the preparation of food, and Mark was left alone with Yamimash. Aaron frowned at him. “You’ve been kinda quiet today. Everything alright?” Mark ran a hand through his hair, making it stick out at right angles, and shook his head. “To be perfectly honest I’m kinda rattled. There’s been some weird shit going down... which is why Bob and Wade are here.” He looked directly at the camera. “Aaron you can’t tell anyone this, ok?” He waited for his friend to nod. “I’m being stalked by serial killer. And I can’t believe how casual that sounded.”

 

Aaron gasped: he pressed his hands to his mouth and his eyes went gigantic. “Are you ok?? Bloody hell Mark!” Mark blinked at him. “I’m fine. I have Bob and Wade here to protect me and a patrol car with cops in it loitering outside because he broke in here and gave me a little present in the form of a severed head in a box. Hopefully they’ll catch the guy really soon, I don’t want to have to skip going to VidCon next week.” Aaron still looked shocked and very concerned, and Mark nervously continued talking. “I mean we’ll be meeting up there and stuff so that’ll be fun but I don’t really want to be worrying about my fans’ safety the whole time… we should organize where we’re going to meet and what we’re going to do so we don’t have a repeat of last year.”

 

Aaron finally seemed to shake out of his shocked daze and caught up a little. “Yeah, last year was kind of a mess wasn’t it? Oh gosh Mark I don’t know if you should come, it sounds dangerous for you.” Mark frowned: he always looked forward to VidCon. “I can’t stay home when I could be out meeting fans and hanging with you, you never come to the states so we never hang out.” His expression quickly changed into a roguish grin. “I’ll buy you some ridiculous American food… we might even have cops following us around on the con floor. Wouldn’t that be hilarious?”

 

Mark’s grin only got wider the longer Aaron was silent, and the Brit finally gave in. “Alright jeez stop grinning at me you’re creeping me out… I gotta go Mark, I’ll talk to you real soon.” Mark waved until he disconnected and then pushed back from his desk. He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes: was going to a convention really such a good idea? He hadn’t even really considered that he might be in danger at a public event but there was a very good chance that his stalker would be there on the lookout for more victims. He struggled with it for a few minutes: on one hand he felt like he couldn’t give up and just not go, he owed it to his fans to meet them and hear their stories… but on the other, by doing so he could be putting them in grave danger from a sadistic psycho.

 

Despite what the detective had said about not announcing it, Mark felt like he should warn his fans that they were potentially in danger. He was being pulled at least three different ways about everything, and it was making his head hurt trying to figure out what he should do. The risk calculation was too much for him and he ended up starting on the long video editing process to try and keep his mind off struggling to make a decision. One thing stayed forefront in his mind: his fans were in danger, and it was all his fault.

 

After a few minutes of stewing in his guilt, he realised he’d just been staring at the same frame and not actually doing anything to it. It was a tough decision for him to leave it, but he got up and went downstairs to see what Bob and Wade were doing. The pair of them were in the kitchen making more mess than food and Mark quickly joined them with almost reckless abandon. They ended up covering the whole bench with food and random mess and then just kind of staring at each other. Wade snorted. The other two stared at him, and then Mark started laughing at Wade. Wade started giggling and then Bob just kind of gave up and laughed too.

 

They spent the evening gaming and feasting, and eventually they trickled off to bed. Mark lay there in the dark with his eyes wide open, again thinking about what Aaron had said. Maybe he couldn’t go to VidCon in good conscience. Maybe he was being selfish, putting people in danger without warning them. He rolled over and sighed, squidging his pillow up and down a little with his cheek, and closed his eyes. He’d have to discuss it with his new friend the detective in the morning. At least he could see if he could get dispensation to warn his fans that something was going on.

  
*

 

Mark didn’t get much sleep that night. The few hours he did manage were filled with nightmares of severed heads and a grey hooded monster chasing him down long corridors. The YouTuber woke in a cold sweat and slipped out of bed to stand by his window and try to calm himself down. The rest of his apartment had a terrible view of other apartments, but his bedroom looked out over a small wooded park with a tiny pond in the middle of it. The sight of it in the grey dawn of a strangely cloudy LA morning soothed him somewhat, and he was able to calm down and focus.

 

He headed for his shower trying to organise his thoughts into some coherent fashion so he could plan his day. The thing that stood out most in his mind was that he was behind on his video editing, and he resolved to get right on that as he drew a dick on the steamed-up glass wall in the shower. If he could spare the time between working and entertaining Bob and Wade without leaving the apartment, he’d have to have a chat with the detective about basically everything that was going down including VidCon, warning his fans, and the strange grey hooded figure he kept seeing around the place.

 

The other two were still asleep; Mark could hear them both when he went out into the hallway. That wasn’t surprising considering it had yet to hit 6:30, so he tiptoed carefully into his office and shut the door as gently as he could to avoid waking them. Mark sat in his chair and turned on his computer, playing with his still-damp hair as he waited for it to load up. The first thing he always did was check his email, but today he decided to just get right on with editing instead of spending an hour and a half dicking around with emails.

 

He finally managed to cut together a decent, funny video and saved it as he looked at the time: 7:28. He’d been at it almost an hour. Mark set it to render and upload to YouTube and started on another video, something nagging at the back of his mind. He was sure that he'd agreed to do something today that he was going to have to get out of doing... shrugging he went back to his video and he was still editing the same video an hour later when Bob poked his head in and offered him some breakfast. “NOT cereal though. You've eaten enough cereal lately.” Mark grinned at him and Bob retreated,  and even through his headphones he heard Bob yell something inflammatory at Wade who made a loud shocked noise. The two of them bickered playfully back and forth and soon the smells of breakfast filled the apartment.

 

Mark smiled and got back to work. He was almost done pulling together a video from their recording session last night with Aaron, and he realized that he'd kept recording afterwards and managed to record his confession about being stalked. It made him glance at the time and then stretch. His detective friend would probably be at work by now, considering he had a killer to catch and that was practically his whole job. He got up to go find his phone and groaned: he was stiff.

 

His phone was not where he'd left it: the charger by his bed was currently unused, despite the fact that he was sure he'd plugged it in last night before he went to sleep. Cautiously he went and hunted around the area, looking on the floor and under the bed. The device was nowhere to be found apparently having grown legs and walked off of its own accord. Mark scratched his head: it was both a complete mystery and an absolute bastard of a thing to happen since that phone was the only way he could make calls. He considered that maybe he'd unconsciously brought it with him into the bathroom and had just forgotten to grab it on the way out, and shuffled into the hallway to check.  He massaged his back and groaned: he needed a new comfy gaming chair and soon.

 

The mysteriously walkabout phone was not in the bathroom. Genuinely worried now Mark rushed downstairs to see if either of his friends had seen it and spotted the naughty thing sitting innocently on the kitchen bench. He snatched it up and Bob cleared his throat. "You left it on the top of the toilet. It started ringing and I was worried it would fall in so I brought it out here. You have a missed call and two messages." The YouTuber was torn between being mad at Bob and grateful that his phone hadn't gone in the toilet bowl, and finally thanked him and glanced at his messages.

 

The missed call was from Detective Damien Scott Carter, and a message from voicemail presumably about the missed call. The other message was a picture, sent from an unknown number. Curious he opened it and managed to read “have I got your attention now?” before the picture loaded and Mark gasped and dropped the device in shock. It clattered across the floor and lay screen-down. Mark swayed, looking like he couldn't decide if he wanted to vomit or collapse into the nearest chair. He opted for collapsing and proceeded to throw himself into a chair and cover his eyes with shaking hands. Bob shook himself out of his stupor and grabbed the offending phone to see for himself what had shaken his friend so badly.

 

He was greeted by the sight of a bloody corpse splayed on the ground. The guts were clearly visible from a huge gash cut into of the belly, a deep visceral purple and red mess sprouting from the cut as though they'd been pulled out like a sick toy. Bob just had time to register the deep chunks that had been angrily worked out of the top of the chest in an M shape before bile rose in his throat and he threw up violently in the sink. Wade snatched up the phone and took one look before he paled visibly and put the phone back down, opting to sit like Mark as his legs gave out. "I need to call the detective." Mark had apparently got his gumption back a little and activated his phone, averting his eyes from the gory mess he'd been sent quickly and exiting to the home screen as rapidly as he could. Bob's reply was to throw up again and Wade looked about ready to join him.

 

“Mr Fischbach, hello. I'm glad you called me back so rapidly…” Mark couldn't let the detective finish. "He sent me a goddamn picture of a dead body!" The detective was quiet for a second before he apparently sprang into action. "Make sure your door is locked and stay with your friends. I'm coming right now... don't open your door for anyone but me!" There were the sounds of keys being grabbed before the call ended abruptly and Mark wobbled over to check the door. He touched the lock and frowned. Everything was locked up tight. He passed by the window to go back to go to the kitchen and looked outside: across the street stood a person wearing a grey hoodie with the hood up and big sunglasses. Mark's mouth popped open and the hood waved mockingly at him. His shock and fear from the picture turned into a burning rage and disregarding everything the detective had told him he rushed to the door and started fumbling around unlocking it. "MARK what are you doing??" Bob's voice stopped him for a second and he turned to his friend. "THE FUCKING KILLER IS OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW AND I'M GOING TO GO SMASH HIS FUCKING FACE IN!" Wade jumped upright and rushed over to restrain him. Bob hurried over to help but Wade had it covered: he was almost twice Mark's size so it was easy enough for him to hold the smaller guy back.

 

Mark struggled for a little while but Wade held firm. Bob had puttered over to the window and was looking out with interest. "What does your so-called killer look like exactly?" Mark sighed and relaxed and Wade let him go. "He's some dickbag in a grey hoodie with big sunglasses across the street. I'm sure it's him, I've seen him around too much for it not to be!" He favoured Wade with a quick smack in retribution and joined Bob at the window: the grey hooded figure was nowhere to be found. “I don't see him." Mark made an anguished growly noise that at any other time would have been adorable and pressed up against the window to look for him. "Well he's probably douched off to doucheville by now!" The YouTuber was able to see Detective Damien Scott Carter talking through a cop car window to the patrol officers that had been parked outside all night. The detective visibly sighed and started heading into the building, and Mark spun around to go sit on the couch and try to calm down completely from his spontaneous fit of anger.

 

Wade let the detective in when he knocked and locked the door behind him: the picture Mark had received had apparently again driven home how serious this was and he clearly felt he needed to help however he could. Even if that meant playing the doorman. The detective stood over Mark and frowned. "So the killer sent you a picture?" Mark produced his phone. "Unknown number. Knock yourself out." The detective took the phone and glanced at the picture, his face paling a little bit. He cleared his throat and scrolled down past the image to take a look at the text. "Have I got your attention now... you sure do buddy..." the detective looked up from the phone and at its owner. "Mr Fischbach I'm going to need to take this phone and submit it into evidence. The department will speak with your provider and get you a replacement." Mark scowled. "Fine. Do whatever you like with it." Bob, apparently trying to be helpful and failing, murmured "what about your grey hoodie murderer?" That immediately got the detective's attention. "Grey hoodie murderer?"

 

Mark made another exasperated growl. "There's a guy who's been hanging around outside a lot. Grey hoodie and sunglasses, is always looking up at my place. Today he waved at me." The detective frowned. "Why didn't you report this before?" Mark just shrugged. "It never seemed important at the time. There was always something bigger going on like a decapitated head." He looked at the detective. "These people died because they're my fans. It's my fault they're dead. If I hadn't done whatever it was to spark this whole thing off..." a tear ran down his cheek. The detective stood awkwardly for a second before he shook his head. "Whatever is happening is not your fault. This guy would have found a reason to kill no matter what. And I promise the LAPD are doing their absolute best to catch him. I'm running down several leads and if even one pans out I can catch him before he kills again." Mark gave a small bitter laugh. "You'll have plenty of opportunity in a few days. He'll probably be hanging around me at VidCon."

 

The detective looked panicked. "VidCon?  You're still going?" Bob snorted. "Like we could stop him." The detective fished his phone out of his pocket and started muttering as his fingers flew across the screen. The words "not enough time" and "not enough people" and "too many unknown variables" were thrown about and finally Damien looked up. "You really have to go?" Mark nodded. "This is my job, detective." The detective sighed. "Then I'll organise some plainclothes cops, maybe see if we can't increase security." Mark shrugged. "I don't care about myself. I care about my fans." The detective stared at him. "I'm not providing a cop to follow around every single one of your fans." He smiled a little and Mark managed a smiled back.

 

Damien said his goodbyes and left, and Mark rubbed his eyes. Bob looked sadly at the breakfast he’d made that was going untouched; none of them wanted to eat anything after their shocking morning. Left without his phone, Mark had no idea what to do with himself. Wade suggested that they have something to eat and then do some recording, and Mark readily agreed. He was very willing to submit to any kind of distraction.


	7. For Those Who Came In Late...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me apologising for the delay is starting to get a little tedious, isn't it? I was going to try and get this finished and posted before Christmas but I got thrown into my new job on the 8th of December and didn't have any holiday at all and have pretty much been working flat-out ever since.
> 
> Double points if you went "is that? It is! That chapter title is a 'The Phantom' reference!". Minus ten points if you went "who is The Phantom?"

This case was going to be the death of him. Detective Damien Scott Carter got back in his car and put the key in the ignition but he didn't start the engine. He’d firmly believed that he was going to crack the case based on the evidence he'd already gathered but instead shit kept happening that made no sense. It especially irritated him that, despite the danger to everyone involved, Mark was insisting on going to a convention. The Youtuber seemed insistent on getting everyone else killed: Damien could think of safer things, including slathering his genitalia in peanut butter and running naked through an attack dog kennel and wearing a metal suit in a lightning storm.

 

The detective rubbed his head: it almost permanently ached now. Damien looked over at the phone he'd taken sitting innocently in the plastic evidence bag on the passenger seat and groaned; the sheer volume of evidence was starting to get overwhelming. If that much evidence had been from any other case he'd have said that there were at least two killers but everything else pointed to a lone psycho. The conundrum made him angry and he twisted the car key muttering something about this being his final case and that he'd retire from the force and take up gardening professionally.

 

When he got back to the office he discovered that all the technicians were downstairs on their coffee break and groaned: the frustrated noise was starting to be the only one he made. Walking back to his desk his boss stopped him. “Detective, a word?" He followed her into her office, head still throbbing, the evidence bag still clutched in his hand. His boss seated herself behind her desk and nodded for him to sit down too. Damien hated the chairs in the chief's office (an ancient brown vinyl that always made fart noises if you wriggled) but he sunk into one slowly and waited.

 

She cleared her throat and clasped her hands on the desk for a second before picking up a pen and fidgeting with it. "Detective... the case you're working on... it's extremely high profile now, lots of journalistic and political interest. The higher-ups are wondering if you can handle the workload by yourself." Damien frowned but the chief continued. "So... I'm assigning you a temporary partner to help you with the case." She gestured towards the door and the person loitering there came in.

 

She was extremely tall. That was his first impression. Taller than the average man, she wasn't a stunning beauty by any means but definitely not ugly either: more normal-looking than anything. If pressed he would have guessed her age at around early thirties, and she wore a moderately flattering no-nonsense blouse and pants combo with sensible shoes.

 

The way she wore her gun and badge and walked into the room spoke of enough years on the force to be confident but not tired. The male detective approved of her immediately. "Detective Damien Scott Carter, this is Detective Rebecca Johansen formerly of the Seattle PD.” He could see her sizing him up, and he slid out of the vinyl chair with as much dignity as he could muster and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you Detective.” She squinted at him for a second before shaking his hand. “Likewise, Detective.”

 

The chief allowed them another awkward moment before chasing them out of her office. Damien headed back to his desk and sat down, brain moving very sluggishly. Detective Johansen followed him and sat at the empty desk opposite his, her eyes fixed on the plastic evidence bag Damien had forgotten he was carrying. He took a quick glance to follow where her eyes were looking and then he put the phone on the desk in front of him. “I need to run this down to the techs but I’ll be right back… and then I’ll brief you.” He didn’t move, and it took all his force of will to (slowly) get out of his chair again. He was conscious of the other detective watching him with a mixture of concern and amusement and grumpily grabbed the phone off his desk top.

 

The techs were in this time when he arrived all looking so very chipper after their coffee break. The overworked detective had to resist punching the widely-grinning face of the tech who accepted the bagged phone and told him “I’ll get it to the specialists right away, detective. It’ll get the full VIP treatment… one of them will email you”. Damien nodded; he had no idea what the full VIP treatment was but he was eager to get out of there as fast as possible and get back to the real work.

 

On the way up to his floor the ancient lift stalled between floors and he groaned again before proceeding to jump up and down hard. Everyone who had worked in the building for more than a month knew that was the best way to get the lifts working without having to wait for the elderly maintenance man (who, it was rumoured, had appeared mysteriously on the day the building had been built and would remain there until it was demolished). The lift hummed, whirred and then with a loud sickening thunk and a frightening jolt downwards started its ponderous way back up. Damien was extremely glad to get off it and return to his desk.

 

He gathered up as many files as he felt he needed, each stuffed with information and forensic reports, and nodded to Detective Johansen. She got up and followed him into an unused conference room, watching as he dropped the files on the table and started spreading them out. Damien grabbed a whiteboard and some magnets and started putting up pictures. “I don’t know how much you’ve heard about this case so I’ll start at the beginning… approximately two months ago, a young woman was reported missing by her family. She was found here,” he gestured to a large map on the wall “asphyxiated with shallow cuts in her chest in a symbol we would later understand was originally used by the YouTuber Markiplier.” He darted over and pushed the appropriate file towards the other detective.

 

“At the time we weren’t aware that this was a serial killer. It wasn’t until two more bodies, one male and one female, turned up in our morgue a few days later with the same cause of death and same strange shallow cuts that we started linking it together as a possible serial killer.” He pushed two more files towards Johansen and continued. “The morgue said that they were all killed by the same guy; the hands that strangled them were the same size. The guy was smart though, used gloves all three times and washed himself so we weren’t able to retrieve DNA evidence.”

 

He gestured to one of the pictures. “It was at this murder here where he started using the cord… and started going all Hannibal Lecter on his victims. We think he broke in and lay in wait and then he snuck up behind the victim as she was browsing her computer and started strangling her in his usual method. She fought back and he ended up grabbing her mouse cord and using that. It was still wrapped around her neck when her parents found her.” Detective Johansen was looking rather ill at this point and Damien nodded. “We can take a quick break if you need it.” She shook her head. “Let’s get this done as quickly as we can.” Damien approved, giving her a little mental tick for stickability, and continued.

 

“Basically the murders then escalated through another three victims, every time getting more and more vicious. The last victim I attended…” he slid the folder of pictures of the swimming pool crime scene towards her “... was the worst I’ve seen. Decapitated, with the same shaped cuts down to the bone. We’re still unable to identify him, because his head hasn’t been recovered yet. We also have a female head that doesn’t belong to any of the victims we’ve seen so far which means there might be a lot more bodies out there that are undiscovered.” He stopped his monologue and looked at Johansen: she looked sick but eager and he nodded to himself.

 

The phone that he’d unconsciously moved from his pocket to on top of the table before the briefing buzzed loudly, as though it had sensed the need for a convenient excuse and had decided to fill the role unasked, and the two detectives stared at it in shock for a second before Damien scrambled to answer it. “Detective Damien Scott Carter speaking?” he listened for a few seconds as the technician on the other end filled him in with what was going on downstairs. “Right. We’ll be down briefly.” he paused as the tech interjected. “That’s right, I said we” and proceeded to hang up on the convenient excuse and segue himself out the door with an amused Detective Johansen following.


	8. Breaking News

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Feel like a bit of audience participation? I'm taking all bets on who the killer is! Actually I'm super curious who you think it is, of course I know. Why wouldn't I? Ha. Ha. >_>
> 
> Do you think it's Bob? Wade? Mark himself? Or is it Damien? Detective Rebecca Johansen? Their superior officer? Some random dude on the street? Let me know who and why! Or don't. You can also scribble it down into a notebook full of strange runes and mutter it to yourself over and over in a hushed monotone voice. Whichever you prefer, I'll see it either way. 
> 
> >>Shy_Fox

The lab was absolutely buzzing with activity. Technicians were flying everywhere, rushing test results to grizzled detectives and their plucky comically-mismatched partners. Damien stood looking at the mess for a minute or two, unsure which white coat required his attention, until someone spoke from behind him. "Detective." They both turned to find a young woman with brown hair twisted up into a bun that was trying its hardest to escape and bright green eyes behind glasses. She looked back at the pair of them and blinked before adding a hard yet slightly belated 's' to the address and beckoning to them to follow her.

 

She led the pair through a door into a different part of the lab: this part was filled with half-assembled computers and lots of gently glowing monitors. It was quieter there, punctuated only by the whirring and clicking of hard drives being read and written to and the occasional electronic beep of complaint. The woman led them deeper into the lab to a bench covered in small phone parts, and stopped in front of a lamp illuminating what was obviously a workstation. She waited for them and picked up the phone Damien had dropped off earlier. "You'll be interested to hear that this phone has tracking software installed on it." Damien grunted: he was one of the types who could make calls and send texts and maybe play a few games, but not much more. Luckily for him, his new partner was a bit more tech-savvy and asked "prebuilt or custom?" The tech blinked at her as though trying to assess if the question was worth her time. "Prebuilt. Bought off the darknet for the massive expense of $29.95."

 

She tapped the screen and then gestured to a close-by monitor. “Observe.” There was a bigger display of the phone screen, and the two detectives watched in fascination as the tech sorted through a bunch of jargon. “This is the code that makes up the phone… here.” the jargon paused and zoomed. “This is non-standard. I checked it against known software and bam. Tracking software. I can’t trace the owner though, hundreds of these kits are bought every day.” she wandered off muttering about something and then came back with two neat-looking printouts. “Here you go. My report on the software.” Damien glanced at it and she kept talking. “That was just the first thing I found, though. Using the networks I tracked down the basic geographical area where the pictures sent to this phone came from.” The detectives looked at each others excitedly but the tech shook her head. “No don’t get excited… the trace was unable to give me anything more definite than the sender was in this city.” Damien shrugged: it was better than nothing.

 

Suddenly his phone started screaming at him and he jumped before answering it. “Det-” he couldn’t get more than the first syllable out before his boss jumped down his throat. “WHY THE HELL AM I LOOKING AT DETAILS OF YOUR CASE ON THE GODDAMN NEWS??” Damien had to hold the phone away from his ear as the chief continued to scream at him, his stomach dropping as he wondered who had talked. The three of them stood staring at the phone still screeching obscenities, and with the push of a button the tech turned on a tv.

 

“You’re seeing it here first on Channel Eight! Details on the biggest serial killer case since Jack the Ripper swept through London in a wave of terror! Caution: the following images may be disturbing to viewers.” Damien started to swear under his breath as pictures from the crime scenes started to flash across the tv screen. When that was over the pictures faded out to reveal a smiling tv show host. Damien ignored her as she started to speak and tried to soothe the chief enough so that he could hang up and call the tv station to get them to pull the plug. He looked over and found that Johansen had already pulled out her phone and started the call. She gave him an ‘ok’ hand signal and Damien went back to trying to soothe the chief before she had a stroke. The tech was simply watching the tv, and appeared to be making notes.

 

Because he was still trying to calm the chief Damien didn’t hear what Johansen said to the tv producers but, the screen went dark and was replaced after a moment with “We Apologise; Technical Difficulties”. That seemed to immediately calm the chief down and she took a few deep breaths before she hung up without saying anything. Damien shakily pocketed his phone and looked at Johansen: she was still on the phone. “That was completely illegal and you know it. Freedom of speech does NOT actually cover this. I don’t care what your boss says. Yes I actually do know what I’m talking about, I’ve been on the force for ten years. Stand by.” she covered the mouthpiece and looked at Damien. “Want to go down and find out what’s going on?”

 

Damien nodded and started feeling around in his jacket for his keys (upstairs in his desk drawer where he’d left them) as Johansen told the tv station that they’d be down shortly and that any attempt to hide evidence was going to be prosecuted to the fullest extent. She chuckled as she hung up. “That always makes them go clucking for their lawyers.” Damien couldn’t help but grin: he liked her sense of humor.

 

The tech stopped them before they left and mentioned something about wanting to come with them. Damien shrugged: he was ok with it. He left Johansen to help the tech pack up ‘just a few things’ into a bag and ran upstairs to get his keys, badge and gun. He passed by the chief’s office and saw her sip from a glass of tomato juice and gave her a weak smile before scurrying about his business: her face looked like a thundercloud and every one of her subordinates knew that any attempt to talk to her for at least an hour would be suicidal.

 

The detective met his partner and the tech in the basement parking garage, casting an eye over the bag of technology the tech was bringing with her and shrugging. Johansen slid into the passenger seat and spent the second it took Damien to get in the car minutely adjusting it for optimal comfort. The tech managed to fit herself into the back with her bag of stuff and Damien started the engine; he was in a strangely impish mood despite the leak in the case and turned the lights and sirens on just for the hell of it as he took the ramp out of the parking garage at speed and rushed towards the tv studio.

 

They arrived (not surprisingly) in record time and Damien parked out the front. The three of them exited the car and made their way up the stairs to the tv studio, a large 70s brick building that had had many additions and modifications tacked on as the station grew and shrank with the times. They were met at the front desk by the head producer, a sweaty little man with the pinched face and squinty eyes of someone who spent too much time in front of a bright screen in a dark room. Damien declined to shake his hand and instead made sure to show his badge. “Detective Damien Scott Carter. This is Detective Rebecca Johansen. Are you in charge?” The producer nodded, sweat dripping off him. “Yes that’s right, Arnold Walberg, head producer. I was given the go-ahead for the program from the station head. We have a journalistic duty-” Damien cut him off. “I need you to tell me who leaked the information to you.” The little man, despite the fact that he was shorter than both the detectives by a clear foot, bristled and drew himself up. “We have a journalistic duty to protec-” Damien cut him off again. “Now! We don’t have time for this. I can very easily come back with a warrant, Mr Walberg.” The little man seemed to deflate as he gave up. “I didn’t talk to the informant myself. It was our best journalist.” His squinty eyes got dreamy. “Miss Alexandria St. Claire.”

 

Damien gulped; Alexandria St. Claire was a well-known crime-reporter-turned-tv-show-host. She was smart, ruthless, asked burning questions and wasn’t afraid to pursue a line of questioning. Famously, she once climbed fifty feet up a New York fire escape to interview a gunman holed up with hostages. She’d been honoured by the news community and cursed by the police. Everyone knew she’d been invited out to L.A by all the tv stations, each trying to poach her, until she’d finally settled in as Channel Eight’s prime time news anchor and host of her own morning talk show. Damien knew by reputation that she was someone to be feared, but he wasn’t able to communicate that with his compatriots in time before a door swung open and Alexandria St. Claire herself sauntered through it.

 

She was very small: slim and pale, with a cute dusting of freckles, she was the opposite of the typical Los Angeles reporter. Despite having lived in the sunny city for almost four years now, her skin hadn’t picked up the nutty brown tan found on most people in positions like hers. Her bright red hair had been severely tamed in a neat pageboy bob, but even with tons of product to try and keep it straight a curl snuck through here and there. She had bright blue eyes that pierced through her target, and right now they were laser-focused on Damien. “You. Did I hear you say you were a detective?” Damien found himself unable to answer; in the face of those sharp blue eyes he was struck speechless. Detective Johansen came to his aid again. “Yes, he is. This is Detective Damien Scott Carter and I’m Detective Rebecca Johansen.” The eyes flicked from him to her, and Damien took a deep breath. He hadn’t even been aware that he’d been holding it.

 

Johansen seemed completely unaffected by the reporter. “We’re here about the report you ran about the serial killer.” Alexandria’s face changed; she looked delighted. “Oh you liked it? Fantastic.” She turned on her heel and gestured for them to follow her, leading the detectives (and the so-far silent tech) down the hallway to a dressing-room with her name on the door. “Of course, as soon as I got the call I knew I had to run the story myself. This sort of thing can’t be left up to your average reporter, it needs a well-known face like mine to guide it the way it needs to in order for it to blossom.” She gestured for them to sit down.

 

Damien did but Johansen didn’t, choosing instead to prowl around and look at things like an uncomfortable cat. The tech had disappeared, unnoticed, on the way through. Damien tried to focus and managed to get a question out. “So…. you got a call? Who from?” Those blue eyes focused on him again and she waved a hand. “That’s not really important, detective. You’re completely missing the key facts.” Damien nodded and fumbled around for his notepad, and then realised the Johansen was just kind of staring at him.

 

The male detective cleared his throat and tried to get his mind on track. “And what would those be, Ms St. Claire?” The reporter laughed and waved a perfectly manicured hand. “Call me Alex, please!” When neither detective reacted to her generous offer, her face changed to something hard that was unlike the mask of open generosity she usually displayed. “The facts are that your department is hiding multiple murders from the general public. Despite that, you’re content with leaving them in the dark and in danger.” Damien said nothing, and Johansen just clasped her hands behind her back.

 

Alexandria leaned on her dressing table with a careless elbow and toyed with a stubborn curl. “Very interesting stuff, the things my source told me. Something about the murders being ritualistic sacrifice to a YouTube personality. A few years ago I would have said that was farfetched… but I suppose that many different people following someone leaves the door open for crazies. I assume they’re safe?” Damien nodded. “He’s safe in his apartment under our watch.”

 

Alexandria laughed again, a bitter edge to it. “Safe under police watch. Very funny detective.” Damien said nothing, and Alexandria fell silent, and it was really awkward. Finally Johansen broke the silence. “Ms St. Claire we’re going to need the name of your informant.” Alexandria’s laser gaze trained back on the female detective and she sneered a little, a very unpleasant expression. “You know that’s not how this works, sweetie.”

 

Johansen shrugged. “Fine. I just thought you could do without us publically serving your station with a warrant.” Alexandria laughed again, that bitter little chuckle of a jaded crime reporter that was nothing like the airy laugh she’d put on earlier. “Oh honey I know you think you’ve got what it takes to play here with the big kids but don’t forget I did six years on the crime beat in New York before I came out here. And I know it’d be good publicity. Everyone will think you’re trying to hush me up because I know something.” Her face was scarily serious. “And it’s so very easy for me to get a burner phone.”

 

Her face relaxed back into L.A charm. “Thanks for visiting me, guys. I’ll send you some muffins! I know the cutest bakery.” She stood and opened the door, summarily dismissing the cops, and slamming the door behind them when they left. The two of them looked at each other, Damien amused and Johansen pissed off. He jerked his head towards the exit and then headed that way, and she followed clearly fuming. “The nerve of that woman!” Damien chuckled. “Welcome to L.A, detective. Everyone here thinks they’re above the law, especially reporters.” They headed outside and slid into the car, but Damien didn’t do more than turn the key in the ignition for power so they had some music to listen to.

 

The two of them waited, and finally Johansen cracked. “Why are we still sitting here?” The man looked at her questioningly. “There were three of us when we went in and now it’s just us. I don’t think the tech would be very appreciative of having to walk back to the office with that big bag of stuff.”

 

Johansen twisted around and verified that yes, actually, their third party member had in fact disappeared. Damien chuckled. “Don’t worry. She’ll be out soon.” Sure enough the car door opened a few minutes later and the technician slid into the back seat. “Thanks for waiting, detective.” Damien shrugged and started the engine. “No problem. It’s a long walk back to the office.”

 

They drove in silence for a while, and then Johansen twisted around in her seat again to address the tech. “So… what were you doing in there?” the tech broke a rare smile. “Talking to my colleagues. It’s amazing the kind of things people are willing to chat about…” she looked down at her phone. “You know the darndest thing… it may have been casually mentioned to me in passing by someone that Ms Alexandria St. Claire has a hair appointment in an hour… and that her hairdresser is on holiday in Hawaii. Also that she booked a car from the pool to go to it even though her hairdresser is about a block away and she always walks. So there’s that.” She looked up and realised that both the detectives were staring at her. “What?”

 

The two of them shared a grin, and Damien looked back at the road. Johansen shook her head. “People still do that?” He shrugged. “She’s old-school, I’ll give her that. Actually meeting the leak is a move I haven’t seen in a long time and not something you usually do after you’ve already got all the info you need on the story… did you notice she didn’t even know which YouTuber it was?”

 

Johansen started to say something but stopped as she realised and Damien nodded. “Yeah, she was fishing for info. I’m starting to suspect that her hand was forced and she broke the story too early. She didn’t have anything but some pictures from the earliest victims.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Ms St. Claire was taking a big risk, banking on us forcing the station to pull the story before it became obvious she didn’t have anything and then getting us to hurry up here for an impromptu interview.”

 

He rolled his head a little, stretching his sore neck muscles, and then pulled into the underground parking garage. “I wouldn’t be surprised if what we said today ended up in a news report tonight. It’ll take at least that long for the station to fight for their right to report it.” They got out of the car and headed for the ancient lifts, and Damien glanced at Johansen. “I’ll show you the proper protocol for getting a warrant filled out in this city. It shouldn’t be too different from what you’re used to but it’s still a good idea for the first few.” The tech got off at her floor with a wave and the two detectives rode the ancient machine back up to their floor.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not ashamed to say that the unnamed tech in this chapter was a self-insert. That is actually pretty close to my real job, I just don't work for cops. 
> 
> Many mad props to ErikaiAndraste for helping me out with the hardcore crime journalist femme fatale name (I suck so bad at naming). 
> 
> Don't forget to comment with who you think the killer is and why! Best theory gets to be a character in the next chapter if I remember :D


	9. VidCon!

It was time. Today was the day. Despite being locked in his apartment with Wade (and Bob) Mark was up bright and early, showered and shaved, and was currently trying to get his hair floof perfect. It kept swinging to one side or the other and he was starting to get rather frustrated with the whole concept. A skilled twist of the hand holding the comb later and it finally behaved, going back on itself to create maximum lift in as small a space as possible. “A truly magnificent piece of art.” He looked over at the open doorway where Bob was leaning. His comment had been tinged with sarcasm but clearly he was just jealous. “You're just jealous.” Bob grinned and then made a pained whimper. “It's true. I cannot have such truly floofy hair and so must bring you down about it.” Mark threw the now redundant comb at his friend to send him scurrying away laughing. Wade replaced him in the doorway. “You almost done in here? The cops are downstairs waiting to escort you, your highness.” Mark nodded and retrieved his comb from where it had landed in the hallway.

 

The officer waiting downstairs was the same one who'd so diligently guarded the door when they'd discovered the head in the box. He was accompanied by another uniformed officer, but Mark didn't recognize her. “Mr. Fischbach, we're here to escort you to the convention. Detective Carter makes his apologies about not coming himself, he's very busy checking the place out and briefing the undercover officers. However he said he'll meet you at the event and stay with you.” Mark nodded at the strange female officer and grabbed his bag.

 

The officers escorted the three youtubers from the building and into their squad car. “I'm sorry about the panda car, the only undercover one the pool had left smelled like a drunk had been sick in all the seats.” Mark wrinkled his nose. “Thanks for not grabbing that one, this is fine.” Wade slid in first, remarking "I haven't been in the back of one of these since first year of college”. Bob and Mark exchanged glances: the obvious solution was for Mark to sit between his bigger friends. Rather than fight about it and risk being late, Mark slid into the car and did up his seatbelt as Bob wedged himself in next to the other two. The male officer closed the door and then got in the passenger side. The other cop started up the engine and asked "who wants me to turn the sirens on?” She got three grins in return.

 

*

 

The three of them arrived in grand style to the convention: the lady cop took a few liberties on the way there, taking a few tight turns and putting on the lights and sirens as they approached their destination. They pulled up with squealing tires and the crowds thronging the area turned as one to look. The male officer in the passenger side leaped out and opened the back door for the Youtubers. Bob slid out first followed by Mark and then Wade. All it took was one fan screaming “LOOK IT’S MARKIPLIER” for a bunch of people to rush over. Mark was immediately surrounded and felt his heart start to lighten; meeting fans never failed to lighten his mood, even in such dark times. He autographed everything shoved his way, taking selfies left and right with his trademark giant goofy grin, and listening to people’s stories. Things kept getting shoved into his hands until he couldn’t carry any more and had to use his two cop bodyguards at impromptu shopping baskets; Mark made sure to thank every single gift-giver.

 

Eventually the group managed to push their way to the convention centre entrance, and in through the doors. Wade and Bob had both gained armfuls of gifts from their fans, but it was nothing compared to Mark’s haul. They were met in the hall by another throng of fans, and a VidCon staff member pushed her way through to the front of the pack to get her hands on them. “Excuse me…. EXCUSE! ME! Jeez people calm down… ok!” she put her hands on her hips and Mark grinned at her; she was sort of chubby and short with big blonde curls and bright blue eyes, but very cute and looked like she’d be the good kind of bossy. “Ok... Hi. I’m Katie, your VidCon liaison for today. If you guys want to come with me, I can sort out your passes and get you through to the con floor… and figure out a place to put all your presents.” The crowd made noises of distress and she shooed them away, pushing her way back through them and heading for the VIP gate.

 

Katie went and talked to a pair of other staff members, who immediately looked behind her at the trio and their uniformed police guards. She beckoned them over and held out a trio of shiny gold plastic passes on black lanyards with VidCon printed along them. “These are your passes… here you go… and you, too…” As they slipped their passes around their necks, she held out two silver passes to the uniformed cops. “You two, too. If you want to stick your presents in the tubs to your left, we’ll hold onto them for you until you head home.” The police officers dumped the gifts and donned their passes, and Katie cleared her throat. “Your superior has already been through with a whole squad. VidCon is more than happy to help accommodate the Los Angeles Police Department in whatever way we can.” One of the other staff members handed her a clipboard and she looked at it. “It’s now just on 9… You’ve got a signing session set up for 10am, in the North Hall by the wall there, til 11:30. Don’t worry, we’ll bring more of the tubs for your gifts. You’ve got a sponsored lunch with a group of very lucky fans at 12:30 in the Panda room, followed by a panel at 2 in the Western meeting room.” As she talked she marched the group towards the entrance to the convention, and then as they were spotted the crowd’s fangirling began in earnest.

 

*

 

No matter where he went, Mark was surrounded by fans. He’d been separated for some minutes from Bob and Wade, who’d been mobbed by their own fans, and his police escort was looking very put-out with the amount of people who could potentially be a sadistic killer surrounding him. Mark hadn’t seen any other policemen, but he just assumed that they were incognito and he’d see them in the event of an emergency. The YouTuber had thought it was a little strange that he hadn’t seen Detective Damien, but shrugged it off; the man was probably insanely busy trying to coordinate a whole squad of cops to look for a psychopath in the middle of such a huge crowd. All of a sudden Katie was holding firmly to his elbow, and pulling him towards a long table at the back of the hall. “This way please Mark, it’s almost 10 and time for your signing session with your friends.” Mark looked around and saw Bob and Wade trailing after them, and because he wasn’t paying attention to where they were going he was surprised when a certain special someone fought their way through the crowds and flung themselves at him yelling his name.

 

The cops got nervous and started trying to get the guy hugging him away, but Mark was quickly able to wave them away and hug him back. “Hello Aaron!” Yamimash let him go and gave him a beaming smile that lit up his face. He looked as scruffy as ever, but he seemed to have gone to some effort this year and actually washed and combed his hair and trimmed his beard a little. Mark did his best to mess up the neat strands as they were ushered by the ever-bossy Katie towards the long table covered in black cloth that had been set up for their signing session. There were four seats with nametags, and Mark noticed he’d been put at the very end next to Yamimash. There was a man standing behind his seat wearing a silver pass, but there was something about the way he stood that told Mark that it was a plainclothes policeman. The cop nodded to him and turned back to scanning the crowd as he sat down, picked up a pen from the table, and prepared himself for the oncoming hordes.

 

He lost track around the 200th signature and selfie just how many people he’d seen. People of all different shapes, sizes, and ages flowed past, faces all so full of uncontained joy that he couldn’t help but return it tenfold. The feeling of community he always got when he was surrounded by his fans made him so happy. All too soon the session was over and the fans who hadn’t been able to get to him were standing around looking so disappointed (including a few fans crying) that Mark ended up spending almost his entire free hour chatting, laughing and taking photos with anyone who approached him.

 

Katie reappeared by his elbow and muttered something about how he was going to be late for lunch, guiding him away from the throng towards a different area that had been roped off and had tables that held celebrities that he recognised. His YouTuber friends were all seated around a big table together, with one space left open between Bob and Yamimash, and five fans sitting across the table from them. Mark sat down and poked Aaron hard as a weird sign of affection. He countered the poke-back and grinned across the table at the people in front of him. Katie stood behind the fans and nodded. “Ok. Welcome, you lucky people, to our sponsored YouTuber lunch.” She indicated the fans. “These guys won a little competition we had to have lunch with you four. They were able to answer some… rather specific questions with a level of detail that was, uhh… certainly very interesting.” Mark raised an eyebrow and Katie shook her head as if to say ‘don’t even ask’. She cleared her throat and indicated the first fan guest sitting across from Aaron. “This is Robert. He was able to answer our question about Yamimash the quickest!” Robert, a tall thin man with long dark hair scraped back into a ponytail, gave a weak wave and an even weaker nervous smile to Aaron and the rest of the YouTubers.

 

Katie moved on and indicated the girl sitting across from Mark. “This is Kit, she tied first in our Markiplier section. It almost blew up our website.” Mark looked at the girl: the first thing he noticed was her Tiny Box Tim tshirt and it made him grin goofily and compliment her on it. She seemed much more confident than Robert and beamed at him from across the table from behind a pair of black hipster glasses, cute freckles standing out more as she blushed. She pushed her shiny brown hair back from her face and ducked her head a little bit, and Mark gave her what he felt was a more reassuring smile.

 

Katie waved a hand over the head of the person sitting next to Kit; whoever they were, they were positively tiny! “This is Theodore, and he’s here with his mother. They’re both big fans of yours. He’s… how old are you, Theodore?” The child’s gaze was firmly fixed on the plate in front of him, but he answered in a loud clear voice. “Six and three-eighths!” That elicited chuckles and several “awws” from the people at the table, causing Theodore to look up and give Mark a shy smile. Mark leaned over the table and grinned at him. “That’s a very exact age.” Theodore’s smile widened. “We’re learning fractions in school!” He pulled out something he’d been sitting on and held it out to Mark. Mark took it and looked: it was a drawing of him and Theodore (carefully labelled) flying through space together on dinosaurs. The boy pushed himself up on his chair to explain the drawing. “See that’s us! I didn’t draw Tiny Box Tim because I forgot.” The YouTuber paid very close attention as the best and worst parts of their dinosaurs were explained to him, and didn’t even notice when Katie introduced the other two fan guests who’d won the competitions for Bob and Wade.

 

Lunch was some ridiculous dish that he barely paid attention to; he was having far too much fun showing off for everyone. It was all over far too soon. Katie came back from where she’d been hiding (no doubt on some insidious VidCon official business) and cleared her throat to interrupt the laughter flowing around the table. “Sorry guys but it’s almost 2 and Mark here has a panel… also they need this space for some kind of performance.” Mark looked at his phone: it was indeed ten minutes to two. He spent a long time saying goodbye to them all, hugging anyone who came within arms reach. Theodore cried and wouldn’t let him go when a woman who could have only been his mother came to grab him. Mark made sure that the boy saw him holding the dinosaur picture and met his eyes seriously. “Thank you for the wonderful picture Theodore, I’m going to put it up in my office… but you have to let me go, ok? I need to go and say hi to a bunch more people and make them all feel as happy as you do.” The boy sniffed and let the YouTuber go, and he ruffled the kid’s hair affectionately. “We’ll see each other again real soon!”

 

He hugged Kit for a long time; somehow she felt like she needed a long hug. The two of them took a few selfies together and then she shyly planted a kiss on his cheek just as he was dragged away from the group by Katie. “It’s five past two! You took too long! Your fans are about to start eating each other!” She led him through the maze of crowds towards a big door marked “PRIVATE”, and Mark quickly checked his hair and teeth. She pushed him through it, wishing him luck, and he hurried backstage.

 

*

 

The fans were starting to get hysterical. Security could barely control them, and there were loud voices crying out Mark’s name over and over in an effort to draw him out from backstage. Detective Damien Scott Carter, incognito in a borrowed Legend of Zelda t-shirt and jeans (“not a word”), rubbed his aching head as he looked at the disaster about to happen. The atmosphere was charged with something that was leading the crowd to work itself up into a fury, and just as it was about to boil over a tiny blonde woman in a VidCon Staff shirt hurried on stage with a panicked look on her face and spoke into the microphone. “Everyone! Please calm down!” The crowd suddenly subsided and the instigators who looked ready to throw chairs sat down. The tiny VidCon Staffer took a deep breath and shielded her eyes from the spotlights facing the stage. “Are there… any police officers in the crowd? We, uh… have a small situation backstage with Markiplier...” The crowd, as one, gave a high-pitched wail of distress and several people demanded to know if Markiplier was alright. Damien was already moving backstage in a hurry plowing through people in the way, and the woman audibly gulped. “We, uh.. we don’t know. He…” she took a shaky breath. “He seems to have disappeared.” There was a deathly silence in the room for approximately a second before, without any prior warning, a large explosion tore through the room.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh you guys hate me right now don't you... I'm not even sorry. Gotta keep you hooked after all. Ok I am a little sorry about the cliffhanger.
> 
> Shoutout to my friend Phoenix, who unknowingly provided the character of Katie the exasperated VidCon Staffer. Herding YouTubers around is probably just as hard as her real job (teaching small children). 
> 
> This also seems like a perfect time to plug the other fic I've been writing! If you like Iron Man, father-daughter fluff, sassy teenagers and sassier AI butlers, you'll enjoy it. 
> 
> Find it here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3396332/chapters/7433027


	10. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise in advance for the time-skips, hopefully it's not too confusing. Enjoy!

Damien Scott Carter lay staring up at the dark ceiling, wondering what the hell had just happened. Something was different, but he couldn't decide what it was. Maybe it was the unearthly quiet. Maybe it was the odd smell, a weird mixture he couldn’t pin down that definitely included blood. Maybe it was the dark wetness travelling down his face. Or maybe it was all of those and more. He thought about sitting up but it seemed like a lot of effort; maybe he'd just like to lie where he was for a little while and close his eyes. For just a while. Something was clutched in his hand, and painfully he brought it up to his face to look at. It was a police badge... his badge. The one that read "protect and serve". A thought leaked past the growing fog clouding the lower half of his head: whatever had happened, it had happened in a packed theatre. That meant that there would be a whole lot of people in trouble. It was that thought that spurred him to sit up and take stock of the room.

 

The place had been torn apart at the back; the walls that remained were charred and cracked to an unrecognizable degree. Bodies were everywhere, small fires being doused by the deluge of the rain-like sprinkler system. Oddly, the whole scene was still eerily silent, but Damien couldn't let the quiet stop him. The cop forced himself up, staggering a little and having to lean against the stage for support. He looked around: people were still lying everywhere, some moving and some not. His first task was to head unsteadily towards the danger area and clear civilians from it. The detective performed an extremely quick check on each body he came across, prioritizing those closest to the main blast point and making mental notes, looking for anyone who had survived. As he got closer to the site, he started finding bodies missing limbs and torn apart, and then finally no bodies at all and melted chairs. He stood in front of the spot where the explosive had been: there were scorch marks on the ground and everything in the immediate vicinity had been. Whatever kind of explosive it had been, it had burned hot.

 

He turned and remarked to no one in particular his thoughts, and then emerged from the smoking hole to find the members of his squad of plainclothes cops who hadn't been in the room were keeping the crowd at bay and helping with evacuation. A strange tinny ringing noise had started that sounded a lot like blasted eardrums, but Damien ignored it in favour of tapping some of his officers on the shoulder and beckoning them to follow him into the room to help get survivors to safety. A few people had picked themselves up: some were crying, others were just sitting silently with wide, blank eyes. Damien, still holding his badge, waved it at his officers and fumbled to hang it around his neck so civilians could easily recognise him. They copied him and started helping move the less-injured people out of the room towards the now-evacuated main hall. The detective had something different in mind for himself, and headed up the stairs at the side of the stage with slow deliberate movements.

 

The girl who had come on stage before the explosion had managed to get up, but was looking lost; Damien waved to get her attention and asked her if she could hear him. He could barely hear his own voice, and wiggled a finger in his ear trying to get it to behave; it didn’t, and he gave it up for the moment as she looked blankly at him and shook her head. Feeling around in his pockets he grabbed his notebook and opened a fresh page. “Where’s Mark?” His hand was shaking but the writing was clear, and she looked at it for a second as though trying to remember. Then she pointed backstage with an excited movement and grabbed the pen and paper. “I sent him backstage. All he had to do was walk down the corridor and go in the door.” Damien nodded and took it back from her, pocketing his tools and heading towards the door she indicated. There was a small set of steps and a little area for the door to swing into. The door was closed, and before Damien opened it he took the time to inspect it. The side of it facing the stage was practically untouched: the door must have been closed when the blast went off. That said to the detective that Mark had never made it that far.

 

He pulled the door open and peeked through it; it was a narrow service hallway lit by emergency lighting pointing to the exit: he guessed that the explosion had knocked out the building’s power. Still mostly deaf, the detective cautiously entered the hallway and went away from the inviting green light trying to direct him out. The door he encountered at the other end connected to the main convention hall; he tried the handle and discovered that it had been locked. This aroused his curiosity and he felt around for lights. His hand hit a switch but nothing happened, and he remembered again that there was no power.

 

The detective turned to go and find a torch for a better look and his foot nudged something small. He’d have missed it skittering away into the darkness if the emergency lighting on the surface hadn’t made a chance reflection that caught his eye. Damien followed it into the darkness and felt around for whatever it was; he grasped it gently and picked it up, holding it up to see a thin empty syringe. He headed towards the stage door but something stopped him going through; he had a funny feeling that he should continue along towards the exit. The detective followed his intuition and went to the emergency exit. He could see it had been propped open by a stick and picked up his pace; Damien burst out into the L.A. sunlight and shielded his eyes against the sudden blinding brightness. The sun glinted off something golden lying on the ground a few feet away, and the detective grabbed it. It was a golden pass on a broken black lanyard printed with white words, and the name on the pass was “Markiplier’.

 

*

 

When Mark walked through the door heading backstage, he hadn’t expected to see a long dark corridor lit by intermittently flickering fluro lights. “Eugh… creepy…” The YouTuber headed for the door marked ‘backstage’, but paused when he thought he heard footsteps further up the corridor. “Hello?” There was no reply, and he weighed his options: one, he could go and investigate and fall into the most classic trap that every horror movie and game had ever set, or two he could continue on and go on stage and be with his adoring fans. There was no contest; he was going on stage. He put his hand on the handle, but the hallway was suddenly plunged into darkness. Mark froze for a second; the green emergency exit light at the end of the hall was the only light source, and it was doing a very poor job of illumination. It occurred to him that he was holding onto a door handle, a simple wrist movement away from light and safety and people, and twisted it with a small chuckle at his own foolishness.

 

The chuckle died when the handle turned but the door wouldn’t open, and Mark pulled and pushed at it with increasing alarm and then let it go. “No problem… just go out and around…” He headed back towards the door he’d initially come through, only to find that locked too. “Ah fuck.” He knocked and pressed his ear against it; he couldn’t hear a thing. The YouTuber was so preoccupied with trying to get attention from the other side of the door that he didn’t hear someone come up behind him, didn’t hear them silently uncapping a syringe. He did, however, feel them inject him; he turned quickly at the rapid puncture in the side of his neck and tried to see what was going on. “What the fuck?” A human shape blocked out most of the green illumination given off by the emergency exit sign, and Mark panicked; who knows what they’d just jabbed into him? He shoved them hard, and they stumbled backwards. There was a clink and rolling noise as the syringe they’d been holding fell, and Mark didn’t even bother to wait to see if they recovered from the shove. He rabbited out of there as fast as he could, slamming into the far wall under the sign at full speed and then desperately stumbling towards the exit door.

 

Luckily this one wasn’t locked, and he pushed at the bar holding it closed expecting the alarm to go off. There was no alarm noise but he didn’t have time to think about it as he practically fell out of the door into the blinding sunlight, trying to get away from his attacker as fast as possible. He took a few strangely shaky steps and then fell flat on his face as his body gave out. “Traitor…” was his only thought as darkness started closing in, his eyes focusing on the shiny gold pass that had fallen next to his face. He barely registered someone standing over him as a foot entered his view to stand on the pass, and then everything went blurry as his glasses were removed. Mark felt hands grasping him to haul him up into the boot of a car. The YouTuber tried to fight it, but whatever he’d been given was too strong and he eventually gave up and submitted to a surprisingly pleasant grey fog of unconsciousness.

 

*

 

Damien Scott Carter was crouched down beside where the pass had been sitting, shading his eyes and looking at a few ants crawling over the gravel. He was unaware that Detective Rebecca Johansen was behind him calling his name until she tapped him on the shoulder and made him jump. She said some words but he just looked blankly at her; he still couldn’t hear anything except a soft ringing, and frankly it was starting to worry him a little. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU” he yelled, wiggling a finger in his ear again and making the pass in his hand bounce up and down. He didn’t hear Johansen’s reply but from her expression he could assume it was dry and sarcastic. “I FOLLOWED THEM OUT HERE. MARK’S BEEN KIDNAPPED.”

 

Johansen made a lowering gesture with her hands and he made an effort to talk more quietly. “Sorry. I think they used the cover of the explosion to mask their escape. All the cops in the area immediately converged on the hall to deal with the big boom. No one would have noticed a car leaving this spot in the mayhem.” He crouched back down and looked at the ants. “See here? These little guys found some blood. I’m willing to bet it’s probably Mark’s, since it was right near where I found his pass.” Johansen was writing something, and he looked up when she turned her notebook around for him to read. “Do I need to go to the hospital… no I think I’m fine, just temporarily deaf. I did go through an explosion after all!” He grinned but she didn’t return it, instead tapping the word hospital a few times with a raised eyebrow. He shook his head and got serious. “It’s fine, Johansen. I want to get on with the case, I mean I did just lose a major target and explosion or not the chief is going to yell at me.” He was quiet for a few seconds, then asked “any idea how many are dead?” Johansen’s mouth drew into a sad line and she wrote a number down in her notebook for him. Damien looked at it and then looked away as guilt clawed at him; if he’d been quicker about catching this sicko then all those people would still be alive.

 

He heaved himself up: there was no use sitting around crying about it when there was work to be done. He headed back inside and was pulled aside by a paramedic, who checked his eyes with a penlight. The paramedic mouthed something, but Damien just pointed to his ears and made a big effort not to yell at top volume. “Hearing’s gone! It’s fine!” The paramedic looked like she wanted to take him to hospital for checks and Damien prepared to walk away, but they were both halted by lights suddenly flaring up and a microphone being shoved into his face. Damien turned in surprise to find Alexandria St. Claire standing there, framed by the lights of a camera, a hand aggressively on her hip as she looked expectantly at him.

 

If he’d been able to hear, he would have known that she was asking him for a comment on the recent explosion. When he didn’t answer, she prompted again. “Detective… just who did this?” He shook his head and glanced at where the paramedic had been standing; she’d melted into the background in the face of St. Claire’s interrogation, leaving the poor deafened detective to stand there awkwardly as St. Claire ravaged him with questions - none of which he could hear. She clearly got more and more frustrated as he refused to talk, gesticulating wildly; all Damien could hear was the ringing noise of explosion-related hearing loss, occasionally punctuated by the odd pop and click. Alexandria St. Claire, clearly exasperated, turned to the camera and said something he couldn't hear that looked like she was wrapping the segment up. She stopped suddenly and turned with a look of irritation at something approaching them through the crowd of cops and paramedics. He turned to look too, and gulped as he saw his boss descending on them with a look of fury on her face.

 

She stopped and looked at St. Claire with anger, saying something that looked like a question about how she got into the scene. St. Claire replied something, looking shifty, and the chief rubbed her temples. Damien felt a little smug as his boss waved two uniformed officers over and gestured to the reporter and her camera guy, saying something that looked rude and aggressive. St. Claire’s mouth popped open and she objected, trying to get in between the officers and the camera guy, but the cops just pushed her aside and extracted the disk from the camera as the chief pointed towards the exit. The reporter looked huffy and jerkily motioned to her camera guy, and the two of them were escorted out. 

  
  


After they were gone the chief turned and started to talk furiously at him but he couldn't hear a word she said; he watched her mouth and caught the word “incompetent” in between what looked like nasty swear words. Detective Johansen came to his rescue again; she butted in with a cool expression and clearly explained that Damien had been caught in the blast and gestured to her ears while saying what looked like “the portable chef”. The chief went even redder but couldn't yell, and instead took several calming breaths as her shoulders slumped. She said something in a defeated way to Johansen, who nodded and started writing as the chief disappeared back into the sea of uniforms.

 

Damien tore his eyes away from the chief and muttered “thanks for that” to Johansen. She just nodded and kept writing, eventually turning the notebook for him to read. “The chief says that she doesn’t blame you, although you did make her look pretty incompetent. She wants us to go back to the station after you’ve had your hearing checked out and get started on the kidnapping.” he read it out loud and then sighed. “But I hate hospitals…” Johansen just rolled her eyes and tapped her watch as if to say the sooner they started the sooner it would be over, and the two of them went back outside into the hot L.A sun to the car.

 

*

 

Someone was talking, Mark realised as he slowly came back to himself after a strange nightmare about being chased through the dark ocean by sharks. His hip and shoulder were uncomfortable, and he tried to roll over to relieve the pressure only to find that he couldn’t move; there was something hard at his back, and a weird rushing noise. He became aware that he was being jostled a little, and opened his eyes to see what looked like the trunk of a big SUV. He could see the sky out the windows; the sun was going down, or maybe coming up, he couldn’t tell exactly which but it was that amazing blue-orange with pink streaky clouds that looked like little pink marshmallows piled up together. He gave a little groan and tried to shift; his back was against the side of the trunk, and so he tried to push away from it. He managed to roll a little in an attempt to free up his arm, but as he rolled the car turned the corner sharply and he was flung across the trunk and smacked his head. “Ah fuck!” Mark tried to rub it before he realised that his hands and feet were tied with rope. “FUCK!” He started to struggle, thrashing around, and only stopped when he felt the car slow down and finally come to a stop under some trees that blocked out the spectacular view of the sky.

 

There was a clinking noise from the front of the car and he heard someone get out, and stopped thrashing as he realised they were probably coming to shut him up. Fear and adrenaline made him stupidly reckless, and when his silhouetted kidnapper opened the trunk with a syringe in their hand he managed to launch himself out of the car with one of his trademark screams. He hit the ground with alarming force and felt the breath whoosh out of him. He groaned breathlessly, straining at his bonds as he tried to claw his way across the ground away from the kidnapper and head for the treeline. If only he could just get away long enough to get the rope off his ankles…

 

A foot was firmly planted in his back, slamming his face into the ground with the force and making him cough, followed by a knee. A cold hand grabbed the back of his head and held him down, and he could guess what was in the other hand heading for his neck. He struggled but his kidnapper was way too heavy to throw off, grinding his face down into the dirt and increasing the pressure on his back until his ribs creaked from the compression. “Gaha!!” Mark managed to cry out in distress, and the pressure on his back lifted somewhat. There was a little squirt of liquid next to his head from the syringe, and the nasty thing was jabbed into his neck with an unnecessary amount of force. The pressure on him was eased, and Mark was able to lift his face out of the dirt. “Please… don’t do this…” all his bravado had left him, and he just felt afraid. Fingers threaded through his hair, and the syringe was removed a lot more gently. “Shhhhhhhh.” The rush of air from the kidnapper’s mouth stirred a leaf next to his face, and he felt them toy lovingly with his hair. Again that grey fog of unconsciousness was rising up to meet him, and he shed a few tears as his body involuntarily relaxed and he was ushered back into unconsciousness.

 


	11. Hope lost and found

People think when you come out of unconsciousness it’s always like a slow rise to the surface, like it is in books and in movies. Sometimes it’s like that. But sometimes, just sometimes, consciousness comes rushing back all at once and you become hyper aware of every little thing. This second one was true for Mark; he’d experienced both in his life, but this particular return to the land of the living was unexpectedly jarring. There was a dripping noise nearby and he was uncomfortably aware of the need to pee. He was lying on his side on what felt like a bed, head comfortably propped on a pillow, too afraid to move. Just like that he remembered what had happened; the attack in the darkness, waking up in the back of the SUV, the mad scramble through the woods…

 

He opened his eyes. It was dark but not pitch black. More like a room at night with the curtains drawn. The place seemed familiar somehow, and he focused as best he could without his glasses on the fuzzy shape of an alarm clock on the bedside table that looked… just like the one in his room. Mark was able to stretch a little and lift his face from the pillow; the room looked just like his apartment. But surely that was impossible? A little braver now, he was able to slide his arm out from under his body and roll onto his back. His limbs were uncharacteristically weak, and his neck hurt, but otherwise he was unharmed. It seemed as though he’d fallen asleep on the top of his bed, at home, in his apartment in the city. But it couldn’t… be… surely not?

 

Maybe the whole kidnapping thing had been a bad dream! Maybe he’d just been too stressed out from overworking himself and had a teeny tiny nightmare. Mark sat up and looked around. It was definitely his room, he was sure of it now. The YouTuber swung his legs out over the edge of his bed; since the whole kidnapping thing had just been a nightmare, he could comfortably get up and go to the bathroom. His legs were still strangely weak, and started to collapse under him. Mark grabbed hold of the nearest handhold: the curtains. He pulled the railing from its holders with a surprised curse, falling in a heap under the fabric. Glad no one had witnessed him acting like such a fucking uncoordinated moron he pushed the curtains off himself and was greeted by the sight of bars on the window, illuminated by a weak half-moon low in the sky.

 

Mark gaped at them; a lot of his neighbors had security bars across their windows, but he was high up enough that he felt safe leaving his bedroom unbarred. He scrambled across the floor and pushed himself up to look out the window at the bars, noticing as he did that the window was differently shaped. The bars were thick steel, bolted deep into the external wall, and made a cross pattern on the floor in the light of the moon. Mark touched the glass and looked past the bars; the room was pretty high up, and he could see dark woods all around. The tops of the trees made shadows across the grounds in front of the window, dancing in a slight wind. There were no other lights that he could see.

 

He pushed away from the window and headed for the door; there had to be a way out of there. His legs shook as they carried him across the room and he almost fell a few times but made it to the door. It was cold when he put his hands on it; it felt like one of those huge steel fire doors. He tried the knob; it turned, and the door swung open eerily silent on oiled hinges. There were a bunch of thick powerful locks on the outside, and it made his stomach clench in fear when he saw them.

 

The hallway beyond it looked just like his place, but somehow more sterile; almost like a movie set. He crept out of the door, keeping close to the wall as he headed up the hallway and checking all the rooms. The whole place seemed to be a disturbingly good reproduction of his apartment, but there was a cold blankness to it. Each of the rooms had been outfitted just as it was at home, but it wasn’t until he looked into his office that he discovered just what had been disturbing him; there was no clutter. He was by nature a messy person, and there was none of the natural clutter that accumulated around him on a daily basis. The whole place was empty except for furniture, with no personal touches to it at all, and it made him shiver.

 

The other difference he noticed was when he got to the spot where the stairs should have been. There was simply a blank wall. Mark ran his hands over the wall in a half hearted attempt to gain access but no dice. He made his way back down towards the not-his bedroom, touching and knocking on all the walls in every room checking for a way out. Nothing. He paused in the office and looked hard at his computer. It was on, and looked just like his real one; he got a little closer and noticed the single LED on the case that had never worked was out in a row of working ones and felt a small thread of hope; it /i was /i his computer. Maybe he could get a message out!

 

He threw himself into the chair and desperately clicked on the mouse to wake it up. His heart sank when he saw that dreaded symbol: no internet connectivity. It took him a second to check behind the machine but it was indeed missing the blue cord that would have been his salvation. That broke him and he just sank back against the wall and cried. Not the big heaving sobs that tore from your throat and soul, but the tiny delicate tears that come when you just give up. He was in the clutches of a psycho, but he wasn’t fearing for his own safety.

 

All he could think about was his family. They'd probably never know what happened to him. And his fans! All those people who needed him! He couldn't just give up on them, when they'd never given up on him. Even in his darkest times, late at night when he'd had too much to drink he'd always had the community. Their remembered warmth gave him back that small thread of hope. They were unbelievably eagle-eyed, noticing even the smallest details and keeping rigorous notes. Someone had to have seen something, and as soon as he missed a few video uploads and didn't goof around on Twitter they'd tear the earth apart looking for him. Somewhat comforted, Mark rested his head back against the wall behind him and hugged himself. It was probably going to be ok.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry about this update being a tiny morsel after so long of nothing but honestly I just liked it like this. I've mostly been working on my Iron Man fic (to keep myself happy! Because the Markithriller story is depressing as hell!), which if you like Iron Man you can find here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3396332/chapters/7433027
> 
> The next chapter will be a nice long update, and it will come soon (I'm just about to force-feed it to my unfortunate beta reader Erikai and feast on her delicious tears of anguish). Don't hate me. ^_^"


	12. Reports

The thing that Damien Scott Carter, Detective, hated most about hospitals were the lights. People often complained about the smell, the mix of antibacterial chemicals hiding a pale sickness, but in truth he didn’t mind it; he hated the cruel fluro lights far more. It was the same in all the hospitals he’d been in over the years (and he’d been in quite a few). No matter which hospital he went to, the lighting was the same. This one was no different; it was one he hadn’t been in before but it was exactly the same as all the others. It smelled the same, bleach and antibacterial chemicals with an undertone of illness and sorrow, and those ugly great strips of fluro lighting reflected off the shiny lino floor. He’d been shown into an exam room by an overworked nurse and told to wait, and had taken a seat on the exam table as Johansen (who, of course, refused to leave him alone while he was deaf) stared steadfastly at one of the generic art pieces on the wall.

 

Damien wasn’t watching the door, and so completely missed the entrance of the doctor. It wasn’t until Johansen got his attention by waving that he turned his head and focused on the strangest medical professional he’d ever seen. She was about twenty feet tall, towering over the pair of them, with her short brown hair neatly combed back and her scrubs a pretty pale blue. She held her hand out for him to shake, and he took it; her hand dwarfed his, but it was coolly professional. She said something, but all he heard was muffled words. “I can’t hear you, I’m sorry.” He had to make an effort not to yell, a little glad that he could hear his own voice now too (albeit very muffled and indistinct, like he was listening through a heavy door). The doctor looked at him and then at the chart and then back at him. She said something to Johansen, who nodded, and then the doctor grabbed the instrument he’d been expecting to look in his ears.

 

Minutes later he came away with a diagnosis: no permanent hearing loss or other damage, but it would take a few days for him to be able to hear completely again. The amazonian doctor also patched up a few cuts he hadn’t realised he’d had, and gave him her card with _“just in case”_ written on the top of it. He wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that but he was too happy to be out of the glare of the fluros to stop and ask.

 

Johansen said something and he turned his head to give her a questioning look; she sighed and pulled out her notebook. _“Do you want to go back to the station?”_ He nodded. “Yeah I have something I need those tech guys to analyse for me.” She clearly asked “what?” and he quickly slipped on a latex glove stolen from the exam room and held up the used syringe in response. “I found this in the hallway at the scene and forgot about it til now. I think it’s what the kidnapper used to get Mark to come along quietly.” Johansen’s jaw dropped and she immediately wrote something and turned it for him to read. “Is that… yes, you can see the blood on the tip. They weren’t gentle with him.” The two of them headed for the car to speed back to the lab.

 

*

 

Half an hour later the two of them were sitting in the coffee shop downstairs, waiting for their coffee. They’d dropped the syringe off at the lab (and been berated by the tech for poor bagging techniques), and were now just wasting time until they got their results back. Damien pulled out his notebook and pen, and looked through his notes; with all the excitement going on, he hadn’t had a chance to review in a while. “Let’s see…” He read through the case notes and finally got to the last page that had writing on it.

 

It was something he didn’t really remember writing down, but the slipups in the sentences told him he’d made the notes in the dark. “Check CCTV cameras…” Johansen shook her head as their drinks arrived and she took possession of the gigantic cup of steaming black coffee that looked like it had come directly from the depths of coffee hell. His own cup looked tame by comparison. “CCTV was knocked out by the explosion. There's some recordings backed up to a remote backup server...” she took a sip of that demonic coffee and sighed appreciatively. “... but everything after it was missed. The security guy said that the ethernet connection out was on the side that blew.” Damien tapped his pen on his notepad a few times, thinking it over before making notes. “Still worth checking, maybe they caught something.” They each sipped their coffee. “Let's see... the lab has the syringe... there was a bloody partial print on the wall by the emergency exit which is probably Mark's... has someone called his family?” Johansen nodded. “His friends took care of it already. His mother is on her way.” She cleared her throat. “You'll have to be the one to talk to her of course...” Damien bit his lip; he always hated talking to the parents.

 

He sighed and took a gulp of coffee. “At least I don’t have to tell her that her son’s been murdered and cut into little pieces… and that we can’t find all the pieces…” He sighed again and put the mug down to toy with his pen. “Not much to do now except wait.” The detective raised his eyes automatically to the muted tv in the corner of the cafe and his jaw tightened. The station was showing a rotating series of images, mostly of the clean up of the explosion earlier in the day. A plate was put down onto the table, the sound drawing his eyes away from the images towards it. “On the house…” the barista smiled weakly at the two of them as they thanked him for the free pastries and then he glanced at the images on the tv. “I gotta say, detectives… not the greatest day for the Markiplier community. I was supposed to be going there today too, just to see the panel, but I got called into work here...” He pulled aside the nondescript black apron with the cafe’s name embroidered on it to reveal a tshirt with the Markiplier’s symbol.

 

The barista smiled sadly and continued. “We all heard about what happened to Mark… just… just find him, ok? A lot of people need him back in the world.” Before he turned away, Damien saw tears in his eyes and the boy disappeared into the back room for a brief moment. “People really love that guy.” Johansen sipped her demon coffee and took a pastry. Damien nodded, grabbing one. “Yeah… he’s a pretty good guy I guess, he’s helped a lot of people.” She nodded, chewing and put her hand over her mouth to reply. “I had a look at his records, lots of money donated to charities all over the place. I just don’t get how someone could be so obsessed with him that they’d do this.” Damien broke of a piece of donut and dunked it in his coffee. “Why do other stalkers get obsessed? Why do mass-murderers do what they do? It’s messed up psychology. The target of one is just about a guy who happens to have lots of fans.” Johansen kept eating and the silence stretched a bit.

 

Damien looked back at his notes. “Do you think… looking at all the evidence… that maybe there’s more than one person involved?” She glanced at him and frowned. “What do you mean?” Damien tapped his pen on the notepad and took a deep sip of his coffee to give himself time to gather his thoughts. He set the mug down and took a breath. “I mean… a lot of the stuff we’re talking about couldn’t be achieved by just one person. The big cut out M’s in those initial bodies… the coroner said that they looked like they were done by different people at different times and we thought it was just a case of practise makes perfect but _what if it wasn’t?_ And the timing of that strange head delivery at his place is too suspicious! The other body, the headless guy in the swimming pool… he was killed while the second head was being delivered. Did they they kill the pool guy and dump his body on the way? That kind of thing takes way longer than most people think. No, the whole thing stinks for me.” He’d gotten excited and had leaned forwards over the table to talk in low excited tones. Johansen nodded and looked hard at her coffee as though it could tell her the answers.

 

A pair of uniformed cops walked by and Damien leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. He’d been kept up at night thinking about it; what little evidence they had pointed to one very careful killer, but his gut told him there was more than one of them. “It’s either two people, or the guy is a wizard.” Johansen finished her pastry and leaned forwards a little. “Have we checked out his friends?” Damien looked through his notepad. “Neither live in Los Angeles… Bob’s wife and Wade’s girlfriend give them alibi’s, too. It’s just not feasible for them to be the killers.” Johansen sighed. “Just too perfect I guess.” Damien shrugged. “We can’t really discount them, though. I’d like to investigate them both a little more… maybe liaise with the local PD and get them to do the legwork.” Johansen smiled, and he noticed suddenly she had an almost predatory look about her.

 

He dunked the last of his pastry into the dregs of his coffee and ate the coffee-soaked mess. He rubbed his head, touching the number of small cuts on it and feeling how greasy his hair was; he’d been running around for the last three days with only coffee and stolen naps in the break room keeping him going. The man’s exhaustion suddenly caught up with him as though it had been waiting for him to notice it, and he almost slumped onto the table. “I need to go home for a few hours and get some rest.” Johansen nodded. “Do you want me to drive you?” He shook his head. “Nah I can make it home myself… you should do the same.” She nodded and finished her coffee and the two tired detectives both left good tips for their Markiplier fan barista tucked under their cups before they left.

 

*

 

_He was sitting in his chief’s office. At least, it looked a lot like the chief’s office. It had the same cracked linoleum and squeaky brown vinyl chairs, but there was something strange going on with the walls; they looked like they were melting. The chief sat opposite him, dark-faced and imposing. “Are you sure?” Her voice had a deeper echo under it, and Damien frowned at her as she continued. “This is very serious.” He looked down; in his hands was a manilla folder marked “warrant execution application” and he felt a flutter of excitement. “You think you’ve cracked the case…” the chief droned on but he stopped listening and instead turned the folder in his hands so the opening edge was pointed towards him. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get it open; it was like the paper folder was glued shut. He tore at the edge but it didn’t make a difference, the folder stubbornly stayed closed to him. It slipped out of his hands and he glared at it as it lay on the floor. The chief walked over it and suddenly she was holding it, and she opened it to look into it. “I’ll think over your request. Now go back and do your job.” Damien stood up and leaned closer to the chief and that damned folder. “Chief can I just… look in that… for a second…” she stared at him. “Why? You wrote it!” He nodded and reached a hand out. “I know but I need to just… check… please.” She sighed and turned it around for him to see, and just as his eyes focused on the first page…_

 

An alarm went off next to his face and Damien woke up with a startled swear. Disorientated he looked around and focused on the window beside the bed; it was bright around the edges of the blind. The detective had collapsed on his bed as soon as he’d arrived home. His phone, the source of the alarm, was sitting on the pillow next to his face and he grumbled at it. There was an email message from the lab - the blood on the tip of the needle he’d submitted to them was indeed Mark’s, the gloves the kidnapper wore belonging to a generic hospital-grade latex glove. The more interesting part was further down the email: they’d broadly identified what was had been inside it. “A combination of… fentanyl… and something in the class of benzo… benzodiaze….” he squinted at the word: benzodiazepine. He frowned; he recognised the fentanyl as an opiate-type drug more powerful than pure heroin but he had to go and look up what benzodiazepine class drugs were (thanking the internet gods for Wikipedia as he did so).

 

The rest of the email explained that mixed together in a solution they formed a powerful fast-acting sedative. It also told him that both those drugs required a trained medical professional to both access them and mix them correctly, as they were both restricted substances. Damien bit his thumbnail; finally, a break in the case. Whoever had killed all those people and kidnapped Mark had medical training. Something was nagging in the back of his mind, trying to connect two points he couldn’t quite remember, but he pushed it into the back of his brain to keep ruminating and come back when the points were clearer. The detective dropped his phone back on the pillow and practically fell out of bed, shuffling exhaustedly towards the bathroom for a hot shower to help him think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand we're starting to ramp up towards the final confrontation (noooooo the end of the story is in sight)! Special thanks to commenter Asher for being super awesomely nice and checking up on me to make sure I wasn't dead (and subsequently reminding me that I've left you guys hanging for far too long, for which I do apologise). It looks a lot shorter here than I thought it did... it's almost 5 pages on Google docs...


	13. A Solid Lead

The computer whirred to life and Mark ran an eye over the screens. As far as he could tell this was his computer - or a very good clone of it. The rest of the recording station was set up just like his real one, down to the slightly loose camera tripod that liked to make the camera fall forwards if he hit the desk enough times. The accuracy was almost too good but there were tiny slipups; his chair was new and squishy instead of that comfortable ass groove he had going in his one at home. The screens still had the layer of protective plastic around the black edge - something he took great joy in pulling off slowly, delighting in the long creeeeeee noise it made. His mouse and keyboard lacked the seasoned look of finger grease they'd gained after years of nonstop use. The computer, though was perfect. Sometime during the night the ethernet cable had been plugged in and he'd wasted no time trying to access any site that could possibly help him. No luck. The kidnapper was very good and was obviously heavily filtering the internet: he couldn't load anything except Steam and YouTube 

 

The date in the corner of his screen told him it'd been seven days since VidCon. He rubbed the back of his neck touching the still-sore injection site and grumbled. He'd spent the first couple of days trapped in the weird facsimile of his apartment exploring every nook and cranny, testing all possible exit points. He'd burned through a lot of good steak knives sawing around the multiple locks on the door and finally flung it open only to find a flat concrete wall behind it. A few test holes in that proved that it had a strong wire mesh embedded a few inches into the concrete. Still he wasn’t giving up hope: he'd been making little test holes in every single wall. One of them had to be more than a thin layer of painted plaster covering concrete and he would find which one. 

 

The weirdest part of the whole thing was that the food in the fridge and pantry kept refilling itself; every night, any food or drink he consumed during the day was replaced by some mysterious means. It confused and annoyed him, because how the hell was the kidnapper achieving it? It only seemed to happen when he was asleep, which he proved by consuming too much coffee the second night and hiding stealthily behind the kitchen counter to watch. The morning sun for the third day had come up and he'd opened the fridge to find nothing had changed: disappointed, he'd fallen asleep face-down on the couch and woken with a strange blanket over him. Mark had rushed to the fridge and opened it to find it neatly restocked, and he'd thrown a nasty sleep-deprived coffee-comedown tantrum that had shattered everything breakable within reach. 

 

Mark had spent hours lying sadly on his bed staring out at the woods and the changing sky through the heavy-duty bars on the window: the view reminded him of home. Not L.A. - as much as he liked the city and all the friends he'd made there - it would never be as close to his heart as Cincinnati. The view of the woods had reminded him of where he'd grown up, all the games and stories, and he'd closed his eyes as a wave of homesickness washed over him. He wanted nothing more than to hug his family and snuggle his dogs. The man rolled over and clutched tightly onto the pillow as anguish hit him. He’d probably never get to see any of them again. 

 

But that had been before: since then he'd wandered into the facsimile office and idly turned on the computer to play minesweeper or something and discovered that he could touch the outside world. The message was clear: keep making videos. As reticent as he was about obeying his kidnapper it was probably the only way to get a message out. Mark turned on his camera and quickly prepared to make a plea for help. “Hello everyone. , You’ve probably heard the news about me by now; that I’ve been taken. That news is true. I don’t know where I am right now, hopefully I’ll be able to find a way out soon. I don’t know who took me or why, but for now I’m safe.” The idea that his mum, his brother, his family and his fans would be watching this and crying made him choke up and he looked down briefly as tears started to form - but he forced himself to look back at the camera. He had to be strong for his family and for his fans. “I don't know what's going to happen but please, put your faith in the police. It seems like I'm going to be able to keep making videos and I'm going to do so for as long as I'm able to... I don't even know if you guys are going to be able to see this. Whoever took me might just be giving me false hope about this getting out.” His voice broke and he paused for a moment to try and collect himself. 

 

The moment stretched and he cleared his throat. “Mum… bro… I love you. Bob, Wade… Aaron... Sean… all you guys… you were the best friends a guy could have and I would give anything to just be able to go and hang out again.” A tear ran down his cheek and he swiped at it. “Sorry. Just thinking about… all the stuff I won’t get to do…” he cleared his throat again and looked back at the camera. “Be strong, everyone. Even though what’s happened is horrible, we can all get through this. I believe in you all. Be there for each other.” He swiped at another tear: they were coming now and there was nothing he could do to stop it. “Thanks for watching, guys. And I’ll see you in the next video… I hope… buh-bye.” He waved at the camera for a few seconds in his trademark outro before leaning forwards to switch it off and export the recording to his computer. Mark worked quickly to check the video for audio and video for errors. He needed to get this uploaded as soon as possible.

 

*

 

Mark bit his lip as he watched the little loading bar go on its way. YouTube had allowed him to upload and start to render the video, but he was nervous about being allowed to post it. The kidnapper had filtered out every other website and blocked him from trying anything clever, so there was a nagging feeling in the back of Mark’s mind that he wasn’t going to be able to post his video. “Come on…” he tightened his grip on the mouse and squinted at the bar, willing it to hit the end and refresh the page with no issues. 

 

The bar dutifully filled up and the page refreshed itself, and the bright graphic of his homepage splashed across the screen as he sighed with relief. The YouTuber clicked into the page and paused the video, scrolling down to watch the comments in real time: it only took a few seconds for people to start leaving increasingly panicked comments. The sight of other people, even if they were only text on the screen, made him burst into hysterical sobs again. 

 

The comments section filled quickly with message of love and support, and threats of violence against the deranged fan who’d taken Mark away from the community like that. He scrolled through them and managed a weak smile as he read some particularly graphic descriptions of what the commenter was going to do to the kidnapper. He had no idea that, miles away from his location, his family and friends were watching the video.

 

*

 

Detective Damien Scott Carter watched the video again with a passive face. He took in everything he could; the bruises and cuts on Mark's face, probably from falling on it after the knockout drugs entered his system. The rumpled hair and the dark bags under his eyes. He looked like crap. The detective paused the video and stared hard at the frame. The lab had already tried their best to track down the geostamp of the video but for some reason they were unable to pinpoint it. Personally he couldn’t understand the importance of Mark continuing to make gaming videos: if it were him he'd be spending the time to survey the location and figure out a way to escape. Most intriguing was exactly how the video could have been made: according to the uniforms that had been assigned to guard the YouTuber's apartment no one had gone in except for his friends to grab their stuff to move into a hotel, and the uniforms were sure that neither of them had taken the computer with them.

 

The detective sighed and let the rest of the video play out as he chewed the end of a well-abused pen. The video was one of the most viewed clips on the site, rapidly gaining views by the minute and garnering comments of love and support like the jaded detective had never seen. He scrolled down the page and paused to read some of them but they were quickly lost in the mass. “Detective.” He looked up at his boss as she came to stand by his desk. “Chief...” his eyes tracked behind her and then focused sharply on the man standing there. His jaw dropped and he grinned. “Ray!” He stood and moved around his desk to shake the other man's hand. “Ray Fleming, special agent extraordinaire!” Ray laughed and shook his hand back equally hard. “Detective Damien Scott Carter, how are you? Still chained to the same desk?” Damien nodded. “Yeah I'm still waiting for that promotion... what brings you here?” The FBI agent nodded to his boss and she cleared her throat in annoyance. “The FBI have decided that since this is such a high profile case they should stick their noses into our business. He's here to liaise with you and to help in any way he can, apparently.” She glared at Fleming but there was no malice behind it. 

 

She turned on her heel and marched back to her office, and as soon as she was gone the two grown and highly professional men dissolved into childish giggles. “I see the chief hasn't changed at all.” Fleming leaned against the desk and Damien sat back down to chew his pen. “If she did, this place would fall down around our ears... how have you been?” The agent shrugged and smoothed his tie. “Not too bad... solved a nasty little string of killings up by the Canadian border. I'm meant to be on post-case mandatory downtime but when they said you were in charge of this case how could I not take the chance to visit my oldest friend?” Damien grinned. “Your only friend, more like. I don't think anyone else around here has forgiven you for jetting off to Quantico to become an agent instead of taking that detectives badge... coffee?” Fleming nodded and smoothed his tie again and the pair of them headed for the break room. “I don’t need to tell you, Damien, that this case is seriously worrying the higher-ups. The kill-count is one of the highest in the history of the state now. It's not that they don't think you can handle it, they just think you'd benefit from having another pair of eyes. And now with the bombing and a kidnapping... it's all quite fascinating. It's almost as though whoever's doing all this has no idea what they actually want.” Fleming took a sip of the brown gunk that passed for break room coffee and nodded. “Yep that's just as bad as I remember it being.” He put the cup down and didn't touch it again. “Care to show me to your incident room?” Damien nodded and went next door. 

 

The room was covered in neatly placed slips of paper containing case information. The biggest cluster of white was around a grey humanoid portrait with a big question mark instead of facial features. Damien sat on the table and Fleming sat next to him. “Basically... we have no freaking clue who this guy is. I've got a pet theory that it's two people working closely together but a few things don't match up to make it perfect for me.” He drank some coffee and let Fleming cast an eye over the paper. “Nice board work, you've improved a lot.” Damien sighed. “My temporary partner did almost all of it. I helped out by handing her things.” Fleming laughed and Damien resisted the urge to tip his cup over his friends’ head. 

 

Instead he finished it off and put the cup on the table behind him. “We've got a couple of the lab techs working on trying to ferret out anything they can from the video. I just don't understand how he was so good at covering his tracks right away.” Fleming rested his chin in his hand and gazed at the big question mark face in the middle of the web of paper and string. “Have you considered that this isn't his first spate of killings? We had a little string of them with a very similar M.O. down in Arizona a few years ago. Nothing quite so bad, you understand, certainly no kidnapping or bombings. But a similar situation with a lot of good people found strangled. Lots of noise for a short while but he disappeared before local PD could find him for a bit of a chat.” Damien cast his eyes over the web of paper again considering his friends' words. 

 

Johansen bustled through the door with an armful of papers at that moment and didn't even seem to notice the pair of grown men perched on the edge of the table like teenagers. “Johansen come meet our FBI liaison.” She put down the papers and looked at the pair of them for a second before holding out a hand. “Detective Rebecca Johansen, very recently transferred from Seattle.” Fleming leaned back and shook her hand. “Special Agent Ray Fleming, FBI. Hey if you're from Seattle the coffee here must be completely undrinkable by comparison.” She smiled and nodded. “I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually.” Fleming shook his head. “You won't. What have you got there?” He indicated the stack she’d put down.

 

The detective started shuffling her papers. “Meaningless lab results. A few printouts of missing persons... and this,” she paused to hand them each a photocopy of a police report “which is a report from a state trooper on Interstate 40. Apparently there was a disturbance at a truck stop when a trucker spotted a man fitting Mark Fischbach’s description tied up in the back of a car. He apparently tried to smash the window but the car drove off. The truck stop security cameras didn’t get a license plate and the trucker can only remember two digits - but he does remember that it was an Ohio state plate.” She paused and let them read.

 

Fleming finished reading the report before Damien did and hopped off the table to pin the report to the wall. “The car build is described as a recent-model black or dark blue 4WD with tinted windows. The plate is Ohio-issued, and has the letters M and O.” The FBI agent strung a piece of string between the report’s pin and the representation of the killer. Damien looked back at his copy and finished reading with a small smile. “You know what this means?” He looked at his partner and his old friend. “We finally have a new, solid lead.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey remember me and this story I was writing? Heh...
> 
> I do apologise for the long-ass gap but I've been terribly busy at work and then recently very ill. Yay sinus infection followed by a lovely badass cold that just will NOT shift out of my lungs (for which we can all thank ErikaiAndraste and her plague-bearing).
> 
> This isn't the first time Special Agent Ray Fleming has made an appearance in one of my stories (but it is his first time in front of an audience). For some reason, the name Ray Fleming just feels like a really good FBI agent name. I did a bunch of research trying to figure out when and how to get the FBI involved - and that's a lot of the reason why there's a chapter up now. I got all "yeeeah this'll be great" and in the mood to write (which if you read the comments I haven't really been feeling like doing). I wasn't originally planning on having him be Damien's friend. Actually this chapter was supposed to be just straight up Mark bumming around the place and feeling sorry for himself with maybe some appearances in the police station by his family, but I wasn't really feeling it? So Damien came back to watch the video. Ray was going to be the cliche antagonistic superior FBI agent because if I wanted to be original I'd put my own original stories on here too instead of just fanfiction, but I guess he had other ideas. Anyway!
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated and again, so very VERY sorry for the delay but sometimes illness just can't be denied.


	14. Legwork

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy non-specific holiday(s)!

The three officers sat clustered together in a booth by the window of the downstairs coffee shop. They'd been trying to puzzle out the timeline: Ray had pointed out a few inconsistencies around what the forensic evidence told them. The table was littered with paper napkins covered in hurried diagrams, and the three of them sat silently sipping their now-cold coffees: each of them wore a frown of puzzlement. Damien put down his cup and was about to speak about his own private theory when a blue uniform appeared next to their table. 

“Sirs... ma'am... you probably don't remember me but I have some information for you.” 

The speaker was a young female uniformed officer, and Damien recognised her as half of the duo he'd cleared to drive Mark Fischbach and his friends to that stupid convention in a squad car. He nodded. 

“I do remember you, you and your partner drove those YouTubers to the convention.” 

She nodded and tucked her hat under her arm.

“Yes sir that was us.” 

Ray toyed with his pen. 

“What's the information?”

The woman straightened slightly and fidgeted nervously with the edge of her sleeve. 

“Well, sir... it's my partner... he hasn't come to work in a few days. He hasn't called in sick or anything. It's pretty unusual for him to take any kind of time off cos the force is his life.” 

She paused. 

“The force... and YouTube videos.” 

Her eyes conveyed her meaning and Damien's stomach dropped. He rapidly tried to recall what her partner looked like, and realised that the guy had been at pretty much every major crime scene related to the case and had even been one of the cops to guard the door to Mark's apartment after the kidnapping. In fact he'd been the one who'd reported in that no one had gone in or out.

“Son of a BITCH!” 

He couldn't stop the fist that slammed onto the table in front of him, and his upset coffee quickly soaked the napkins. 

 

The detective started squirming to get out of the booth but Ray grabbed his arm to stop him. 

“Hold on a sec Damien.” 

He turned to the officer and cocked an eyebrow at her. 

“Did you try to call him? Could he have gone on holiday?” 

She nodded and then shook her head in reply. 

“I tried every contact I had - phone, email, Facebook... even his Twitter. Nothing. And he would have told someone so we could organize a replacement but the captain hadn't heard anything about it either and agreed his disappearance is highly suspicious.” 

Johansen mopped up the last of Damien's spilled coffee with a fresh napkin and spoke. 

“When was the last time you saw... I'm sorry I never caught either of your names.” 

The uniformed officer pulled at her sleeve again. 

“I'm Griffiths, ma'am. Emily Griffiths. My partner is Teddy Hartman.” 

Johansen grabbed another clean napkin and wiped her mouth with it. 

“Right. When was the last time you saw Teddy?” 

The officer pulled out her notebook. 

“I last saw him at VidCon, before the explosion... we've both been off on stress leave since then.” 

She paused and frowned at her notes. 

“Although now I think about it, he disappeared a little beforehand.” 

Damien gave an excited look at his coworkers and started squirming to try and get past Ray. The FBI agent stubbornly remained seated. 

“Is L.A the only place Teddy's ever lived?”

The officer shook her head. 

“He said something about having to leave his childhood home because it was too dangerous to stay.” 

Damien fidgeted; he'd had far too much coffee in the last few hours and wanted to get up and pace. 

“Where did he live before??” 

Officer Griffiths met his eyes with her wide baby blues. 

“Arizona.” 

 

*

 

Despite the fact that he was trapped in a maddeningly-small apartment, Mark was trying his hardest to stay calm. He'd discovered at least three tiny cameras (and had covered up the one in the shower with two of the sharper steak knives and a small towel) and was currently engaged in an intense hunt for more. The whole thing was just an excuse to not make yet more videos but as he pored over the walls and inspected the ceiling from a perch on a chair he felt he was able to justify not making his art when he found what appeared to be a perfectly square series of hairline cracks in the plaster. Mark ran his fingers over it, his fingers and his eyes showing that it was true. He bounced off the chair and into the kitchen to fetch another of the steak knives. He grabbed the sharpest one and bounded back to the chair, sticking it into the hairline crack hard. There was a loud thunk as it hit wood instead of the expected concrete and Mark wobbled it about in excitement. Plaster sprinkled onto the floor as he worked at the cracks, widening them with a feverish energy. 

 

There was a sharp crack and a large chunk of the plaster fell away, revealing daylight. Hope sprouting in his chest Mark hacked and scratched with his knife and nails at the raw broken edge until more of it fell away and he was able to see what looked like the underside of some kind of recessed hatch. He worked at it - taking off flake after flake - until he'd revealed the whole thing. It was a skylight, one of the openable kinds; daylight was meekly peering through the cloudy plastic and Mark let out a whoop that sounded suspiciously loud in his quiet cage. He cleared his throat and reached up to feel about, fingers finding the latch and opening the skylight. Cool fresh air rushed into the house and the man closed his eyes as it blew past his sweaty face and ruffled his damp hair. Sadly the hatch was too high for him to be able to reach with just a chair but it was a start. He knew from his poking about that there was no ladder in the place but he could probably make a stack of objects high enough to get out. Mark hopped off the chair and scurried to the next room looking for anything big and solid he could get his hands on. 

 

When he returned half an hour later he'd amassed a sizable pile of solid objects. The dining table formed a good base, followed by the coffee table and the same chair on top of that. With the added height Mark was able to squeeze into the hole and shove the skylight open with all his considerable strength past the point it was designed to. The hinges shrieked in protest as they were forced open, then they snapped. There was a loud crash and the sound of breaking plastic as the hatch hit the roof behind it with more force ever seen from a skylight before or since. Mark was able to lever himself up through the hatchway (only briefly getting stuck accidentally wedging his broad shoulders across the tiny gap) and out of the hole to stand triumphantly in the bright sunshine. The man took a few heaving breaths as he looked up at the too-blue sky with a few fluffy white clouds chasing each other across it and howled his exaltation. His explosion of voice echoed across the concrete roof and he followed it to an edge to look down. 

 

He was above his bedroom, looking at the same treeline he'd been looking at the first time he'd regained consciousness. That felt fitting somehow. Mark then looked down and bit his lip: too far to jump safely. There was a drain pipe that might have been able to hold his weight but when he tested it with an experimental foot one of the bolts holding the pipe to the wall crumbled to red dust and the others buckled. Quickly deciding that wasn't a good way after all Mark backed up and then frowned. It seemed as though he was as trapped as he had been before he'd discovered the skylight. He sat on an air conditioning unit output and sulked. 

“Of course the bastard thought of this. Why else would he neglect to fully cover the hole? This was just something to get my hopes up. What a cruel prank.” 

He sulked silently for a few more minutes before he realised what he was sitting on. The unit was new and strongly bolted to the concrete roof. It was also positioned just close enough to one of the edges to make it feasible to wrap a rope around for a makeshift escape route down the wall. That of course raised the question of where he’d get a rope from, but Mark dismissed the thought as too depressingly realistic and jumped up to test the unit’s strength.

 

Even shoving against it with all his might, Mark couldn’t get it to move. It was a good sign, and he joyfully returned to the hatch to seek out something he could turn into a rope. It was a lot scarier going back down than it was coming up; he had to lower himself down using his core strength and his legs ended up dangling precariously as his feet searched for the edge of the chair. Very unhelpfully he suddenly considered that maybe the kidnapper was standing below watching him flail about, waiting with another hypodermic full of drugs to knock him out. Instinctively he kicked out and then grunted in irritation when he connected with something hard and heard the chair fall off the pile. 

“Well that’s just fucking great…” 

He managed to get a quick view of where he was vaguely dropping to past his big manly chest and then took a deep breath - and dropped the extra distance. Luckily he hit the coffee table square on and quickly looked around himself to make sure that no needles were waiting for him. Assured that he was alone he dropped from his perch back to the floor and set about finding a rope. 

 

*

 

Johansen cast her eyes about the dismal apartment and sighed. The place was a typical young cop's nest, full of takeaway boxes and cheap beer cans. A sagging couch slumped along one wall opposite a tv, the grimy blanket wadded on one side testament to long hours spent lounging on it. She didn't have to look in the fridge to know what would be in there but she took a peek anyway and saw more pizza boxes and beer. Damien was messing about in the bedroom taking notes and she glanced in his direction as he mumbled something not meant for her. The man had looked progressively more haggard over the time she'd known him but he seemed as laser focused as ever. He appeared in the doorway as though summoned by her attention: he was holding a dark blue tie in one hand and his pen and notepad in the other. 

“All his uniforms are gone. There's a big chunk of empty closet. Weirdest thing though, he left all his shoes - including his work ones.” 

Johansen frowned and joined him looking in the bedroom. It was as messy as the living room, with a double bed taking up the majority of the floorspace and a computer desk crowded into a corner covered in dirty plates. She walked over to the tiny closet and peered into it, taking in the missing uniforms and the presence of the shoes. She nodded at the pairs of jeans and tshirts huddled together on the floor of the closet.

“He didn't take any other clothes from the looks of it.”

The two of them frowned at each other in mirrored expressions of confusion. Damien made a confused gesture, making the tie in his hand flail, and Johansen focused on it - it was of the deep navy blue that signified it was a police tie. 

“Where’d you find that?”   
Damien looked down at it and then used it to gesture under the bed.

“Under there, along with a stash of old porno mags, a lot of dust and a very sad-looking toy monkey. If I know anything, he just takes his tie off when he gets home and tosses it wherever, which is probably why it escaped.”

He smiled.

“I’ve had quite a few ties pull a similar trick.”

 

The detective pocketed the tie and turned away to focus his attention on the computer sitting in the corner of the room not occupied by the bed or closet. 

“We'll have to take this back to the techs and see if they can crack his password. There might be something useful on it… if we’re really lucky and our reasoning was correct, there’ll be plans for the VidCon bomb and for kidnapping Mark and lots of incriminating photos of all those murders he’s committed.”

The man busied himself behind the desk unplugging things and Johansen cast her eyes about not really looking for anything in particular - focusing suddenly on the rubbish bin beside the desk. It was full of the inevitable used tissues but she could also see something reflecting light behind it, between the wall and the desk. Curious she slipped on a latex glove and pulled the object out. 

“Damien… look at this…” 

He made a questioning noise and straightened to look at what Johansen had found.

“That's a syringe.” 

She sighed and nodded. 

“Yes, Captain Obvious. It was behind the bin.” 

She rotated it so he could see it better.

“Look… blood on the tip.” 

Damien frowned. 

“He had to know we'd find it here, it's not like it was crushed underfoot in a parking lot full of other bits of broken glass.” 

Johansen shrugged. 

“Maybe he didn't have time to destroy it properly before he had to leave.” 

Damien snorted. 

“Or it dropped off the edge and rolled away. He seems to have the worst luck with syringes.” 

He sighed and motioned for her to bag it. 

“If this were a detective novel or one of those bad cop procedurals we'd now go for a drink and run into Teddy at the bar and there'd be a chase scene but we'd get him in the end.” 

Johansen smiled. “Do you want to go and get a drink, just in case?” Damien looked at her evenly. 

“As much as I do… we're on duty and I'm 100% sober on doctor’s orders.” 

He grabbed the computer and headed out, and Johansen took one last look around. Nothing else jumped out at her and the pair of detectives headed for their car.

 

They were almost at their car before the pair were ambushed. 

“Detective Damien Scott Carter!” 

Camera lights went on, temporarily blinding both of them. Johansen quietly slipped the bagged syringe into her pocket and used her free hand to shield her eyes from the overly-bright lights. 

“Miss St. Claire.” 

The reporter emerged from behind the camera and ambushed Damien with a microphone. 

“Can I ask you what you're doing, detectives?” 

Damien glanced down at the computer in his arms. 

“I thought that was pretty obvious.” 

The unseen cameraman snickered and if she hadn't been colour-corrected with an inch of foundation Alexandria St. Claire would have blushed churlishly. Damien ignored her and put the computer in the back seat as St. Claire tried again. 

“Have you got a suspect? Is that their computer?” 

Damien ignored her and Johansen sighed internally before she spoke up. 

“No comment. If you'll excuse us…” 

The pair of detectives retreated from the journalistic assault by fleeing into their car. 

 

St. Claire leaned into the driver's side window and knocked with a staccato series of tap. Damien rolled down the window and St. Claire leaned in even closer. 

“Just so you know I have a hot tip from someone who saw the actual kidnapping. If you want more information then you have to give me an exclusive interview about the case.” 

She slipped a card into Damien's front shirt pocket with long slender fingers and stepped back. He didn't react beyond rolling the window back up and starting the engine. Johansen watched St. Claire turn to her cameraman. 

“Speaking of perfect suspects… what about St. Claire? She has access to a lot of places other people don't and she clearly misses the crime beat. Maybe she decided that L.A could use a new serial killer to spice up the prime time news.” 

Damien shrugged. 

“The same could be said of you Rebecca. You transferred here before the first bodies showed up but took annual leave until the case started escalating and only then did you come to work.”

Johansen nodded: what he said was true. 

“But I've never been to Arizona. Born and raised in Seattle until I moved here. And I’m not really a big Markiplier fan, I don’t have time to be.” 

Damien made a particularly tricky turn. 

“Yep. Assuming that Ray is correct about it being the same serial killer as Arizona. He's pretty good at what he does but he's only human.” 

The pair fell into contemplative silence as they continued to inch through the ever-insane L.A traffic. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some good (and sort of sad) news - I've finished the whole fic! I decided to just write out the whole thing and figure out how to divide up the chapters later. 
> 
> It's been a hell of an emotional rollercoaster (I was in a glass case of emotion), and I had to rewrite a lot of it because I kept forgetting that I'd already done a dramatic reveal earlier in the piece/had forgotten to write in something in an earlier chapter and had to cover my ass with a hasty addition. 
> 
> I'll be posting a chapter a week until it's all over and done and finished and ugh it's so sad.


	15. Mark Escapes and Damien Solves a Mystery!

Mark had never really considered himself a crafty person, but looking at the rope he'd managed to fashion out of strips of sheet he was pretty impressed. The man had applied basic knowledge of ropes and a little bit of Man-vs-Wild know-how to twist the sheets into a thin but strong cord. Silently thanking his long nights spent watching videos, he'd twisted a bunch of those cords together to make a good strong rope. He coiled the rope and looked around the place one last time. There was nothing he really wanted to take with him, but he did grab the last steak knife just in case. Thus armed, Mark headed for his makeshift ladder and the freedom that lay beyond it. He scrambled up the stack of furniture and tossed the coiled rope up through the hatchway. He followed it up, kicking away the stack beneath him. 

 

Hearing the pile of wood hit the deck as he hoisted himself up was enormously satisfying. With any luck it would just look like he'd had another tantrum and his keeper wouldn't even know he was gone for a while. There wasn't much he could do about the smashed skylight and broken roof plaster but hopefully the mess on the floor would be a sufficient distraction. Feeling mighty pleased with himself, Mark grabbed up his coil of homemade rope and set about securing one end to the air conditioning unit. 

 

Once he was sure it would hold him he looked down over the nearest edge and tossed the rest of the coil down. His heart was hammering excitedly as he gave it one last tug before holding tight and leaning back. A dimly-remembered past birthday party at a rock climbing place helped him control his descent: about halfway down he was wishing for a harness. Sweat was pouring off him and his arms were starting to shake from the effort, but he stubbornly continued his hand-over-hand controlled descent until he was able to touch lightly down onto the soft grass below.

 

Somewhere nearby a cricket chirped lazily in the pre-dawn sunlight. The wind played with the leaves of the trees, creating crazy dappled patterns on the forest floor. All Mark wanted to do was collapse onto the ground and cry a bit: he was finally free. A faint rumbling noise like a car going over rough ground kept him upright, and he grabbed a large chunk of rock. Quickly he wrapped it in his homemade rope and threw it with all his might back onto roof. The rock and attached line sailed back up, tucking it out of sight, and Mark nervously darted across to the edge of the slightly misty forest. He ducked out of sight and took hold of the steak knife he'd taken, heaving breaths: his elation had turned to ice cold dread in a matter of seconds. What would his kidnapper do if he caught Mark now? The YouTuber had a nasty suspicion that whatever it was, it would be of a permanent nature. He’d been too much of a nuisance for him to remain alive - and the thought was terrifying. 

 

The distant rumble was getting closer, growing louder as it approached, and Mark looked around quickly. He could see a long dirt path, presumably a driveway, to his left. If he walked up it he’d be a sitting duck for his kidnapper to take him down but if he wandered around in the woods he’d probably get lost and end up back at the start. More out of desperation than anything else he started walking towards the driveway and turned to walk parallel with it away from the huge concrete bunker squatting in the woods. 

 

The track twisted and turned around trees, and Mark became completely lost, but he kept walking alongside the road. His eyes darted from bush to bush: he was scared that someone was going to attack him, and he gripped his knife tightly. He paused briefly to check the position of the dirt track next to him and had to dive behind a convenient clump of bushes as a big black car drove by slowly. He lay there as the big wheels crunched tortuously over the dirt just a few yards away, his heart in his mouth and his body shaking. It continued on down the path and Mark lay there for a few more minutes with his mind racing. Still shaking he forced himself upright: if he lay there for much longer, his kidnapper was going to come looking for him and he didn’t want to think about what would happen then. Most likely, someone would end up dead. Haltingly he moved from tree to tree, ears straining for any sound of following steps.

 

A surprised bird flew away from the tree next to his head and Mark jumped: he slammed backwards into a tree and brandished his knife wildly. He stood there heaving breaths for a few seconds, trying to get himself under control, and he heard that rumble again: this time it was approaching much faster. With a string of curses that would have made his mother slap him across the back of the head Mark broke into a sprint: he was close to a main road, he was sure of it. The rumble got louder and louder behind him but Mark concentrated on running through the twisted woods: a rotten tree had fallen across his path and he hurdled it. The hole of some small animal caught his foot and a sharp pain shot through his leg. Mark fell with a cry and his knife flew from his hand, and he lay there panting and groaning as his leg shrieked in the fall’s aftermath. 

 

Mark knew he should get up; in fact every fibre of his being was screaming at him to move, to roll over, to get up, to do anything. He just couldn't convince his body that he needed it to move. So he lay there, tears trickling gently from his eyes, staring up at the tree canopy above him, until he could summon the energy to try. Painfully he sat up, biting his lip as his dared to look at his extremely painful leg. It looked ok, even with the crimson bolts of agony still lancing through it. It wasn't backwards, which was something. Mark shifted it experimentally - it didn't feel broken - and groaned sickly as the vigor of the screaming agony renewed itself. He stopped moving and panted through gritted teeth, and the leg subsided into a dull throbbing. Slowly, testing his limits, Mark was able to scoot backwards until he hit something solid. He'd been so blinded by his pain he'd managed to completely forget his predicament - and so hadn't noticed the rumbling had ceased, nor the footsteps that had wound their way towards his groans and sobbing breaths, nor the knife being quietly picked up from where it lay on the leaf litter. He didn't notice the person standing motionless behind him until he collided with their legs.

 

*

 

Despite the fact that they had an FBI Agent attached to the case and all the resources the police department could muster, Damien was still currently stuck at his desk filling out paperwork and waiting for the wizards in the lab to finish up with the evidence he’d brought in. Filling out forms hadn’t been his idea of a good time when he’d first joined the force, and he’d been reprimanded a few times in his youth for not doing it. He’d never stopped hating having to push paper, but he’d practised filling out the forms so much that he was now able to do it semi-automatically and so was able to use the time to think deeply without interruptions.  He stretched slightly - what he wouldn’t have given to be able to go and take a smoke break - and refocused his eyes on the form in front of him. Something was nagging at the back of his brain about the apartment he and Johansen had combed through and he couldn’t for the life of him work out what it was. The syringe had been a great source of distress for him - why had it been there? Why had Teddy Hartman not destroyed it after he’d used it? He’d been trained in police procedure, he had to know that they’d find it. 

 

One of the other detectives in the department rushed by his desk and sent the contents of one of the many files on a stack fluttering across the desk. He shot a glare at the retreating back and then started gathering up the files - and then froze as the even clicked with whatever had been bothering him in the back of his mind. He dropped the papers and spun wildly in his chair.   
“REBECCA!” 

His voice cracked out across the quiet department floor and everyone turned to stare at him. Johansen, who’d been making her way back to her desk with cup, jumped visibly and then hurried over.   
“What?”

Damien gestured wildly at his desk, and she looked at it and then back at him with a dangerous glare.

“You better not be asking me to clean up your desk for you.”

Damien shook his head and gestured to the desk again.   
“I figured out what was wrong with Hartman’s apartment!”

She took a seat across from him and sipped from her cup to give herself time. Finally, she ventured    
“Was there something wrong with the apartment?”

Damien nodded feverishly.

“Of course there was! Didn’t you notice it??”   
Johansen shrugged and waited for him to continue. He sighed and looked around.    
“Where’s Ray?”

She took another sip and shrugged again. Damien looked at her balefully.

“You’re being very unhelpful right now.”    
She favoured him with one of the few smiles he’d ever seen her give - it was surprisingly wide and her teeth were very straight. 

“I know. I think I saw him heading downstairs.”   
Damien sighed - Ray would have understood what he had meant without him having to explain it - and then snapped back to attention.

“The apartment. How clean was the floor?”

Johansen finished her drink and replied slowly.

“It was pretty clean now I think about it…”

Damien gestured to his papers again.   
“It was far too clean for someone who owned that fridge, wasn’t it? You’d expect the floor to be covered in dust bunnies and crud, but the place had been swept and mopped recently. Also, look…”

He found the right picture and handed it over.

“See that lighter patch of floor in the bedroom? Behind the computer?”

Johansen stared at the photo and picked up what he was putting down.

“A rug…!”   
Damien beamed.

“A rug!” 

Johansen returned his smile but then something seemed to occur to her.   
“But why is the rug important?”

Damien had started clearing away the papers into a neat stack, but he paused and looked at her.

“Because it…”

As if on cue his phone rang and he sighed but still answered it cheerfully: solving the mystery of what was missing from the apartment had put him in a good mood again. It was the lab, requesting his and Johansen’s presence for their results. With a nod to Johansen he pocketed his phone and keys and headed for the lift.

 

Ray was just getting off the lift as they approached and Damien turned his friend around and pushed him back into the elevator.

“Damien, what…??”   
The detective grinned at his friend and Ray looked even more confused. Johansen followed them and pushed the button, and as the door closed Damien brandished the photo he was still carrying.    
“The rug, Ray! The rug!!”

Ray took the photo from him and looked it over: he took in the outline on the floor and frowned.

“What’s so important about the rug?”

Damien casually pushed the elevator button a few more times to try and hurry the ancient creaky machinery up.

“If I’m right… and I am… then the syringe Rebecca so excellently spotted behind the bin wasn’t a leftover souvenir from Mark’s kidnapping but was actually dropped in the struggle.”

Both his lift companions looked at him sharply but Ray spoke first.

“Struggle? Damien you’re jumping too far ahead…”

The doors of the lift opened to the tech lab and Damien strode forwards, swiping his ID on the scanner and pushing through the double doors. He made his way past the tables heading for one workstation in particular, and greeted the man standing there with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.

“Doctor Foster!” 

 

Doctor Foster was a tall thin man that looked oddly similar to a weeping willow tree. He had a permanent hunch from leaning down to work on tables and equipment that were too low for him, and his long thin face was framed by wild grey hair.   
“Detectives… Special Agent.”

He looked impishly over his thick gold-rimmed glasses at Ray, who smiled politely at him. Foster turned back to the big stack of papers typical of a busy working space and took the top folder off the stack.    
“Here are your results. Very interesting stuff -  your kidnapper seems to have used up all their proper drugs and is just using garden-variety ketamine now.”

Damien took the folder but handed it immediately to Johansen. She opened it and scanned the page: it was a DNA result for the syringe she’d found. 

“No match?”

Damien nodded. 

“I got Doctor Foster to test the blood on the tip of your syringe against the results we got from the one I found from Mark’s kidnapping.”   
He turned to the doctor, who was watching them with some amusement.

“Did the DNA match anyone in the system?”   
Foster nodded and opened his mouth, but Johansen got there first.

“Teddy Hartman.” 

 

*

 

Damien stared at the ceiling of the bedroom of his apartment, his mind whirling. He’d spent the rest of his shift explaining his theory - that Teddy Hartman had either been killed in or kidnapped from his apartment, and the killer had used his uniform to gain access to restricted places - like Mark’s place. He’d had to draw out the timeline to convince Rebecca and Ray, and the two of them had argued a little bit before falling silent. In the face of the evidence, and Damien’s very convincing monologue, the two had accepted that Teddy Hartman was out of the picture as a suspect. That created a bigger problem: Teddy had been a good, strong suspect and without him they were practically back to square one. As Ray had sulkily pointed out, they were now entirely without any ideas. So Damien was lying there gazing at the ceiling, his hands tucked behind his head, as he tried to think. 

 

This case had been a ballache from the very beginning: the man heaved a sigh as he thought about the start of it all. It had been odd, he reflected, that those initial killings had built up in such a viciously dramatic way and then had just suddenly stopped. It had been as though the killer had suddenly been prevented from doing his or her grisly work by something more important - which was completely against any kind of psychology Damien had ever studied. He addressed the ceiling, which listened as impassively as always.   
“If I didn’t know better I’d say that it was two deranged fans separately and that one stopped the other. But that’s…” 

He paused and considered the statement. Was it really so far-fetched? One person had gone too far in their obsession with Mark Fischbach, would it be so crazy to consider that he might have had the same effect on more than one person? Damien stared silently at the ceiling as he grappled with the theory - it fit the timeline. The sudden and extreme downgrade in M.O from cannibalistic serial murders to a relatively vanilla kidnapping, the instantaneous halt of the killings… his phone rang next to his leg and Damien jumped, fumbling about looking for it as it buzzed angrily in the tumble of blankets.

“Hello?”   
Ray’s voice surprised him a little - it was very strained in an excited way.   
_ “Damien! I think I’ve figured something out! What if there was more than one person?” _

Damien frowned - it was like someone had been reading his thoughts.

“I was just thinking about that-”

_ “I was sitting here looking at your caseboard and suddenly it just clicked.” _

Damien couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah for me too. Except I can’t quite reconcile it with the evidence. And there was the evidence of that “mysterious witness” that Miss St. Claire thought she’d so cleverly uncovered when we’d talked to the guy on the day of the bombing… you know, the one who said there were definitely two people in the car.”

He could almost hear the shrug in Ray’s voice.

_ “What if they joined forces?” _

Damien got up off his bed and started to pace around his room aimlessly.

“That doesn’t make any sense Ray, I doubt they’d see eye-to-eye about how Mark should be dealt with. And then there’s the Teddy Hartman evidence… you probably read the report, yeah?”

Ray would probably be shrugging - he was notoriously bad about reading reports thoroughly, a trait Damien had always considered to be a little bit of a failing in an FBI agent.

_ “I skimmed it.” _

Damien sighed.   
“Doctor Foster said that the drug he found in the syringe tipped with Hartman’s blood wasn’t the same drug that we found in the syringe that got Mark. It wouldn’t surprise me if we had two separate operators here… if my theory is correct and our little pair of psychos are actually working independently of each other.”

He paused and let that sink in for a few seconds, before he continued unfolding his theory.

“And of course that means that somewhere, we’ve got a really pissed off serial killer who’s probably trying his or her hardest to get their idol back.”   
Ray was silent for a few more seconds before he picked up the thread.   
_ “What if we were able to use that to our advantage? To get the serial killer to help us find the kidnapper? Two birds with one stone. And then we can slam the book on both of them.” _   
Damien gnawed unattractively at a nail.

“It’s a nice idea and in a perfect world we’d be able to do it, but first of all we’d have to catch the serial killer before we were able to make the offer.” 

Ray laughed.

_ “Ha! If we adopt the theory that there are two separate entities unrelated to each other’s, we should be able to sift through that weird as hell pile of evidence and assign it to each psycho. Which means we’d be able to treat it like two separate cases.” _

Damien hadn’t thought of that but he rather liked the idea. 

“Are you still in the office?”   
_ “Yeah I’m pretty jetlagged, my body still thinks we’re on New York time and also keeps asking for bagels.” _

Damien glanced at the clock.    
“I’ll be there in about twenty minutes. Should we call Rebecca?”   
_ “Nah let her sleep, she was muttering something about a lack of beauty sleep before she left. All we’re doing is boring sorting anyway.” _

Damien bit his lip and sat down to start pulling on his shoes.

“I feel bad about starting something new without her. I’ll text her.”

 

He hung up to the sound of Ray childishly teasing him, and finished tying his shoelaces. The detective leaned over and pulled open the drawer that held his gun in its holster and pulled it out to check it: he usually kept it unloaded at home and he slid a clip into the waiting space. It was just easier for him to load it and then forget it than be fumbling about looking for bullets when the time came for action. Damien buckled on his holster and slid the gun into its oiled pouch before pulling on a jacket: it was surprisingly nippy outside, plus he never liked people to know he was carrying. For some reason it always made people wary of him. Grabbing his keys ID and phone he was out the door in a flash, colliding with a stranger around a corner on the way to the lift.   
“Sorry!”

He turned to make sure the stranger was ok and caught sight of a man in a grey hoodie walking to the elbow of the corridor and turning. Something about them sparked his memory and on a whim he followed the guy: he got to the elbow of the corridor and peered down the hallway lit by the mandatory safety lighting, but the grey hoodie had vanished into one of the other apartments. Damien frowned and turned away, heading for the lift. He stood tapping his phone thoughtfully against his chin for a good three minutes before he came back to himself and pushed the button for the ground floor. The lift slid, velvety smooth, down its cables and Damien busied himself laboriously sending a text message to Rebecca. 

 

The foyer was deserted at that time of night, and Damien made his way over to the short flight of stairs that led to the apartment building’s carpark. The sudden encounter with the grey hoodie had reminded what Mark had said about spotting a guy in a grey hoodie near his apartment, and had also reminded Damien that before the bomb blast at VidCon he’d seen a guy wearing a very similar grey hoodie. As he got in his car and started his engine he had to wonder - was it a coincidence? A lot of people owned grey hoodies, but what kind of weirdo wore their hood up on hot days in direct sunlight and on convention floors? He drove out into the still night and headed for his office, thinking about nothing in particular. 

 

He scanned his ID at the police car garage and drove through the gate, finding his parking spot automatically and wandering towards the lift. He stood at the doors for several minutes before he remembered that he had to push a button, and rode the cranky ancient machinery up to his floor. On the way up he checked his phone: Rebecca had texted him back sometime during the drive over not to worry about starting without her, that she’d be there at 7:30am with coffee to take over if there was anything else to do. Damien smiled: he had to admit, he quite liked having a partner with which to solve murders, and he hoped she’d stick around. 

 

The light in the conference room they’d taken over as their hub was the only light on the floor apart from scattered LEDs on slumbering computer screens. Damien walked down the linoleum strip towards the conference room and opened the door to see Ray sitting at a table strewn with papers and manilla folders. 

“Evening…”   
Damien grinned at his old friend who looked up from the report he was looking at and returned the smile.   
“Welcome to the Bat Cave, Robin.”

Damien rolled his eyes and looked over the report Ray had been reading.

“I see you’re finally taking the trouble to look through Doctor Foster’s report properly.”   
Ray nodded.

“Interesting stuff. The residue in the syringe was street-grade ketamine, but there was enough in it to put an elephant to sleep. Someone’s not having a good time, anyway.”

Damien eyed the mountain of papers on the table.

“So how do you want to do this… piece by piece or do we each take a stack and start sorting?”

Ray pushed his chair back and considered.    
“It’ll be quicker if we divide and conquer.”   
Damien sat on the opposite side of the table and pulled a precarious stack towards him. Ray copied him and the two of them got down to the long tedious business of dividing up the cases.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter shows why proofreading is always a good idea. I put the wrong drug in twice! Go me.
> 
> We're building up to the end slowly! Mark is finally out and the plot is unfolding! He's a self-rescuing princess. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading and commenting and leaving all that kudos, it's absolutely heartwarming and it completely makes my day to hear what you like about it and your theories.


	16. Everything is Revealed!

A pair of strong hands seized Mark under his arms and pulled. He yelled and struggled, flailing his arms as he tried to pull away from who or whatever had grabbed him - and to his surprise he was gently set down.

“Mark! Mark!! It's me!!”

Mark scrambled around, wrenching his injured leg and making it worse in the process, and couldn't stifle the sob of relief when his vision swam and then steadied to reveal Bob crouching next to him. 

“Bob! The killer… he's right behind us…!!”

Bob’s eyes rose of their own accord and quickly raked the treeline and he nodded rapidly, a note of panic in his voice.

“Let me help you up and let's get out of here!”

He slid an arm around Mark’s torso and hoisted him up, half carrying and half dragging Mark across the leaf-littered forest floor. 

 

Together they made it unmolested through the woods to the edge of the main road that Mark had been heading for. A small silver hatchback was loitering on the side of the road, and dimly through the pain Mark heard the driver's side door open and Mandy’s panicked voice pierced the air. 

“Oh my god! Bob what happened??”

Bob was quiet until they made it down the embankment to the road. Mandy rushed around and opened the back door of the car and then helped her husband put their friend in. Mark’s head rolled sideways and he focused on Bob showing Mandy the knife he'd been carrying and saying something quietly. Mark was able to hear Mandy murmur the words “hospital” and “probably broken” and Bob quietly reply with “cops” and “ask questions”. Mandy glanced at Mark and met his eyes: she looked oddly nervous and looked away quickly. Bob put a hand on her arm to reassure her, and closed the car door with the other. Mark let his head flop to the other side and closed his eyes: what a weird coincidence that Bob had been walking around in the same woods he'd been stumbling through… 

 

Mark stiffened as a nasty, impossible thought played through his mind: what if Bob was the kidnapper? He suspiciously opened an eye as little as possible and looked sideways without turning his head: the pair were turned away arguing quietly. Bob was gesturing to the knife and Mandy was blocking the window with her back, her hands on her hips as her muffled voice leaked through the window. Mark looked the other way: the other side was easily accessible from where he slouched. It would be a few minutes until they realised he'd gone…

He shook his head. Bob was one of his oldest friends, surely he had nothing to do with the horrible ordeal? Why would he go to the trouble of kidnapping Mark under the noses of the LAPD? There had to be a missing factor here somewhere. Either way, time was running out and he needed a decision. He eased his way across the back seat, sliding his injured leg gingerly, and then felt his good foot nudge something free from under the seat. The car was parked at a slight decline in terrain, so the object rolled forwards into view with no trouble. He recognised it immediately - it was the same syringe that had been dropped next to his face in that truckstop the last time he'd tried to escape. 

 

A cold drop of dread threaded it's way through the man’s body, and his heartbeat jumped up again. Mandy’s phone was just sitting there, and he slowly took hold of it avoiding sudden movements. Carefully he withdrew with it and as quietly as possible opened the far side door. He tumbled from the car, trying to stifle the grunt as he hit the road hard, and crawled towards the cover of the woods on the distant side. If he could only get away and contact the police… he kept crawling, dragging his body across the hard surface of the road with Mandy’s phone clenched desperately in his fist. 

 

Miraculously Mark made it to the woods across the deserted highway, and heaved himself into the relative safety of the low bushes. He gasped for breath, giving himself a few seconds rest before he took stock of the situation. It wasn't good: because of his injured leg he wouldn't be able to move very fast and besides he was outnumbered. A couple of branches about the same size lying next to each other made him think about the rudimentary first aid course his mum had forced him to take so long ago. Within seconds he'd managed to sit up, tugged off his shirt and started tearing it up into strips. He grabbed the branches and used them to steady his wrenched and possibly broken leg, and tied them hurriedly with the strips of his shirt. 

 

With a stifled groan of pain Mark was able to get up using a nearby tree and limp into the woods. As he limped into the woods away from the road he poked at Mandy’s phone: it was passcoded, but he would be able to call emergency services and with any luck they'd be send a car. He dialed the familiar number and waited while it connected, following what appeared to be a hiking trail.

_ “911 what's your emergency?” _

Mark almost sobbed in relief as he heard that cool professional female voice.

“My name is Mark Fischbach and I've just escaped from being kidnapped. I need you to send a patrol car and maybe an ambulance, I think my leg is broken.”

The cool female voice was silent for a few seconds.

_ “Alright Mr Fischbach. Could you give me your address?” _

Mark looked around, looking for any sign. 

“I'm in the woods near where I was being held… wait there's a sign… Old Oak Trail…”

He bit his lip anxiously and accidentally put too much weight on his injured leg, causing him to stumble and almost fall. He suppressed the violent swear and put his free hand out to steady himself on a tree.

_ “I have your location, Mr Fischbach. Is it safe for you to remain where you are?” _

Mark looked around: he hadn't heard anything that sounded like someone coming after him.

“I think so. I'm going to hide by the trail anyway though.”

The operator tapped away at her keyboard.

_ “There's a canine unit on-route, they'll be with you as fast as possible. Please stay on the line.” _

Mark couldn't help but smile.

“Thanks…” 

He let out an exhausted sob, and the operator broke her cool facade.

_ “It'll all be ok.” _

Mark was crying freely now: the pent up pain and fear had to be released somehow. He tore fistfuls of bark off the tree as he hiccuped and bawled. 

 

The need to weep stopped suddenly, and Mark sniffed. He let go of the latest handful of bark and it hit the ground with a smattering sound, and he tried to wipe his eyes on his bare arm. 

“Hey… s-sorry… what's your name?”

He barely held the words steady. 

_ “I'm Kelly Long… I know this isn't the time but I'm a big fan.” _

Mark laughed through his tears - his fans were absolutely everywhere.

“P-probably not after hearing me lose it like a big baby, huh?”

The operator was quiet for a very brief second as though debating.

_ “Even more so. All of us have been really, really worried about you.” _

He wasn’t surprised so much as pleased - even if he was in a high stress situation, Mark couldn’t help but be so grateful that so many people cared about him.

“Well Kelly… since you’re the first friendly voice I’ve heard in…”

He paused - how long had it been? Too long, either way.

“... a while… I’d like to come personally thank you.”

He could almost hear her blush.

_ “O-oh… well… I appreciate it but please, go to the hospital first and let us catch the bad guy.” _

Mark opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut off by the sound of his name being called by an unfamiliar voice.

 

*

 

When Johansen appeared in the meeting room at 7:32am, a tray of coffees in her hand, she found Damien asleep slumped over a pile of reports and no sign of Ray. Gently she put the coffee down on the table and looked around: during the night, the boys had set up two different case boards and had divided the large pile of case folders and notes into two slightly smaller piles. The notes on the free-standing whiteboards on either side of the two case boards were covered in sloppy notes and diagrams, evidence of the long night the two of them had had. Johansen crossed the floor to look more closely at them, and almost tripped over Ray who was snoring gently under the table. 

“Rise and shine, boys!” 

Johansen nudged Ray with her foot and then stepped over him as the sleepy pair began to stir, intent on getting that closer look she wanted. Damien stretched like a cat and yawned, a hand going to his stiff and aching back as he slowly straightened with a grunt. There was a loud thump and the table vibrated: Ray had sat up too quickly and banged his head. He sheepishly emerged and blinked at Damien, who was helping himself to the tray of coffee Johansen had left. 

“What time is it?   
Damien checked his phone: it was dead. He shrugged and sipped his coffee, and Johansen filled in for him.

“About 7:30. You guys look rough.”

Ray rubbed his head and sank into a chair.

“You would be too if you had to sleep on that floor.”   
Johansen laughed and turned back to continue examining the whiteboards. 

 

Damien slowly unwound himself from the chair and headed for his desk to grab his charger: it wouldn’t do to miss an important development because he forgot to charge his phone. He tiredly watched the little charging icon zoom up and pushed the on button, leaving it to go through the motions of turning on and loading up. He left it on the table to think about what it was doing and joined Johansen at the whiteboard. She pointed to part of it with a frown.

“What is a fish-free oboe check?”

Damien peered at the scribbles. 

“I have no idea. That was Ray’s part.”

He turned to ask the FBI agent what he'd meant but the guy was reclining in one of the uncomfortable chairs with his fingers tented, gently snoring. Damien sipped his coffee and turned back to the board.

“I think we made some pretty good progress since we divided the cases up. Ray made the point that we could get two birds with one stone if we try and get the serial killer, which we've called P1, to help catch P2. He seemed to think that P1 is really pissed off about P2 stealing Mark away, so they'd be more than willing to help us catch the other guy.”

He took a gulp of coffee and stole a glance sideways at Johansen: despite the fact that she'd had more sleep than the boys, she looked drained and worried. Her eyes had deep shadows under them and her face was tinged with grey. He drained the foam cup and set it down on the table, taking a seat to thumb through one of the files. The room was silent except for Ray’s gentle snores and the occasional rustle of cloth from behind him as Johansen shifted around.

 

Finally he turned around to Johansen and hooked an arm over the back of his chair. 

“Do you have any ideas? At all about any of it? We got pretty weird with ours last night so I'm open to anything.”

Johansen sucked her upper lip between her teeth thoughtfully and then grabbed a folder from a stack nearby. She took up a sheet of paper - Damien could see the coroner’s watermark through the back of the paper. 

“I was thinking about the timing of those first killings that P1 did that kicked this whole horrible thing off. The discoveries were all close to big events Mark was doing at the time… charity livestreams, convention appearance, fan meetups, that kind of thing. What P1 was doing took a lot of time in the beginning, seeing how they hadn't got a taste for the slaughter yet… we've been working under the assumption that they live here in L.A, but I broadened my thinking a little, reworked it a bit. The reworked timings for the killings coincides nicely with the arrivals of certain friends of Marks.”

Damien’s jaw dropped: he hadn't thought of that. 

“Bob and Wade??”

Johansen shrugged.

“And that other British one, Aaron Ash. I checked with Border Protection and he was in L.A a lot more than people think. And all I'm saying is that the timing fits them being in the city, I'm not saying they did it.”

Damien looked at the timeline that had been set up for P1, and then got up to pace.

“If that's true, then we managed to lock Mark in with a psycho.” 

Johansen shook her head.

“I don't think so, P1 doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would be able to keep his mouth shut if he were in close proximity to the object of his desires for that long.” 

The two of them paused to digest their revelations. 

 

Ray, like a bad plot device, chose to wake up at that moment and reached blearily for the empty coffee cup Damien had finished off and put down before. He tried to drink the empty cup and looked confused, and Johansen pushed the tray with three other full cups towards him. He grabbed one and then seemed to wake up enough to realise that the other two were watching him.

“What?”   
Damien jerked his head towards his partner.

“Rebecca’s worked out who P1 is.”   
Ray paused before he could drink his coffee.

“Aaron Ash? Known online as Yamimash? Used to be a good friend of Mark’s but for some reason they haven’t collaborated in over a year, probably because Aaron is a fan-butchering psycho?” 

Damien’s jaw dropped - it seemed like everyone else had figured it out except him. Ray gave a filthy smirk and tapped his head.   
“That’s why the FBI pay me the big bucks. It was obvious when you look at their relationship, it was always quite one-sided with Aaron fawning over Mark and then Mark withdrew emotionally. It was probably too much for Aaron to handle and he decided to take his revenge on Mark’s fans, since they’re just about the most important thing in his life.” 

Damien sat back and stared at the two boards in the room. Ray had decided to take on P1 last night, so it would stand to reason that he’d solved for P1. Damien had a number of ideas about P2 but nothing as concrete as working out both identity and motive. 

 

Ray got up and stretched.

“How’d you go with P2?”   
Damien shrugged and toyed with some random crumbs on the table. 

“I have some theories.”   
Ray swung around to look at him.

“Well now would be a great time to air them, don’t you think?”

Damien sighed - Ray had always been very snippy when he was tired. 

“I was looking at the evidence and something struck me, and I’ve basically been trying to figure it out all night. The thing is… how did P2 get Mark’s computer out from under the noses of the uniformed officers? No one was in and out of there except us and some other uniforms, and Mark’s friends to get their stuff. No one was seen carrying it. So how is it now missing?”   
Johansen frowned.

“I didn’t know his computer was missing.”   
Damien glanced at her and matched her frown.

“I told you about it a few days ago, I’m sure of it.”

She shook her head, and Damien shrugged apologetically and then moved on.

“I ended up putting it together with Teddy Hartman’s missing uniforms. Teddy was a bit of a… I’ll get to that in a bit. P2 took the guy’s uniforms and used them to get in and out of places they shouldn’t have been - which is why his shoes were left, because P2 had a different foot size to Teddy Hartman. So P2 was able to take Mark’s computer out without anyone noticing. No one questions a cop in uniform.” 

 

He glanced around. The other two looked considering and Ray motioned for him to explain more. Damien took another of the cups of coffee and sipped it. 

“Coming back to what I started to say before. Teddy Hartman was a _ really good  _ red herring. The guy was basically invisible to us, a socially-awkward white male loner with a strong affinity for Mark’s videos. He ticked every kind of box there was - it was like he was some kind of psychoanalysts’ wet dream made real.”

Damien paused to finish off the coffee and stack the empty cups. 

“It’s my current theory that it wasn’t actually P2 who ‘got’ to him. It was P1, copying P2’s M.O for a kidnapping of his own to try and cover his tracks. P2 just came along later and took advantage of the free uniforms. That’s why Doctor Foster found common ketamine in the syringe that got Teddy instead of that… other one, the one with a difficult name that you need to be at least a registered nurse to access and administer correctly without killing the patient.” 

Ray was pulling at the two-day stubble on his chin, deep in thought.

“Taking Teddy Hartman fits P1’s M.O to a tee. As you said, Hartman was a big Markiplier fan… and it was technically his fault that Mark was kidnapped. So this, according to P1, is unacceptable and Hartman needs to be punished.” 

Johansen pushed the last almost-cold coffee towards Ray, who accepted it and made a face at the terrible temperature, before she spoke at last.

“None of this helps us get Mark back.”

 

Sensing its time was nigh to act, Damien’s phone sprang to life. All three of them jumped, and he answered it.

“Detective Damien Scott Carter…”

_ “Detective! This is Sergeant Wood from the Cincinnati police department. I saw the APB your department put out for the return of one Mark Fischbach. You’ll be pleased to hear that one of our canine units picked him up about an hour ago in the National Park. He’s currently being treated for shock and a fractured tibia.” _

Damien let out a breath he had unconsciously been holding and looked at his two partners.

“Mark is safe! They found him!” 

The tension seemed to melt out of the pair of them and Johansen immediately fished her own phone out of her pocket, mumbling something about calling his family. Damien refocused on his call.

“Thank you for calling me, Sergeant. It’s a great relief to know he’s alive… can I request that you keep at least two well-trusted officers with him at all times and restrict his visitors to just his mother until I arrive? I’ll be on the next flight out.” 

The sergeant agreed.

_ “Yes Detective, as you wish. I’ll meet you personally at the airport.” _

Damien nodded with satisfaction - the sergeant sounded like a solid cop. He hung up and glanced at Ray: he was watching Damien with a strange look on his face. Damien wondered why his friend was staring at him, and then looked down to start to organising a flight to Ohio with his cheeks heating up.

 

Rebecca hung up the phone and nodded in satisfaction.

“Mark’s mother is on her way to the hospital. Do you want to organise the flight for us while I call the chief?”   
Damien shook his head.   
“You two need to stay here in L.A and work out a way to track down Aaron Ash before he finishes with Teddy and disappears again. Put him on the no-fly list just in case and contact the British Embassy.”

Johansen and Ray looked at each other and then back at him. They both opened their mouths to argue but Damien held up a hand to stop them.

“Please just do as I say, I’m kind of in a hurry. You both figured out who it was, you deserve to catch him. I’m going to continue to work my kidnapper case. Rebecca could you please call the chief and let her know what’s going on?” 

He walked away to call ahead to the airport and check the next flight, leaving Johansen to call their boss and Ray to mutter to himself as he stood glaring at the evidence board for P1.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you go. The answers I've been sitting on for just under two years (holy shit two years??) and fifteen chapters have finally come out - there's still plenty to come though, the next chapters have some very disturbing questioning sessions revealing their motives behind acting like a bag of dicks to Markimoo. Bonus points if you spotted the Cabin Pressure line.
> 
> Here's a reader interaction question: did you suspect the identities of the killer and the kidnappers all along? Or was it a plot twist for you? I know it was a plot twist for me (this is when you find out that I have no idea what I'm doing from one minute to the next. I'm a gardener type writer not an architect type). 
> 
> Thank you so much for getting this far, I appreciate every single read it gets and it warms my frozen heart to volcanic levels when people give this meandering and at times inconsistent monstrosity a look - which is again nothing compared to the smile I have for days after someone comments or leaves kudos. I've really truly enjoyed writing this and I'm still so very, very surprised that anyone would want to read a murder-mystery/thriller story about a popular YouTuber (my first public foray into murder-mystery/thriller, that I started to entertain my friends and keep myself occupied). Thank you again, every one of you guys, if you're reading this. I'm more grateful than I can express. <3
> 
> Shy_Fox (Isabelle).


	17. Interview Room One - Part 2

been through a lot but I have to ask if you can tell me what happened.”

Mark closed his eyes again.

“I’m assuming you know about the VidCon stuff…” 

“Of course. How about you tell us how you managed to escape, and what happened after that.” 

 

Mark relayed his tale, and Damien made quick notes in his notebook with a growing frown. When he described how he managed to escape Damien had to stifle a scoff - how could anyone  really escape like that? Especially without specialist training! Still, the detective couldn’t argue that it had worked and chalked it down to Mark’s weirdly bipolar luck. Mark described how he’d fled through the woods in a panic, gesturing frustratedly at his fractured tibia as he told Damien how he’d tripped and fallen, and how he’d met Bob randomly in the woods. Damien’s frown vanished and he leaned forwards intently. It was all starting to fall into place. Mark told him how Bob had helped him through the woods and had tried to put him into Mandy’s car, but Mark had escaped out the other side and continued on into the woods and Damien finished his notes with a flourish. He turned around in his chair to address Sergeant Logan who had taken up a position next to the door.

“Have you been able to pick Bob and Mandy up for questioning?”   
Logan looked startled and shook his head, and Damien frowned again.

“Do you think you could? If I’m correct, they’ll be very close by where Mark was picked up rapidly clearing out Mark’s bunker.” 

The sergeant swallowed and took his suggestion to heart, leaving quickly and calling to his officers. Mark opened his eyes and looked directly at Damien.

“Were they seriously…? The kidnappers…?”

Damien nodded.

“I believe so. I checked with the Ohio State Nursing Board before I flew out here and Mandy’s been trained as a nurse. The drugs they used on you could only have been obtained and prepared correctly by someone with training.”

He paused and searched Mark’s face: in addition to his exhaustion, he looked sad and terrified.

“So Bob and Mandy… killed and ate… all those people?”   
Damien immediately shook his head.

“No, they didn’t.”   
Tension seemed to melt out of him and his eyes closed again, and Damien hated what he had to say next but he was a cop dammit and he had to tell the truth.

“That was Aaron Ash.”

 

Mark’s eyes flew open and he looked in disbelief at Damien. His mouth opened and closed a number of times like he was about to say something, but eventually he just closed it slowly and looked heartbreakingly distraught. Damien gave him a few moments and spent some time neatening his notes. Finally Mark spoke in a small childlike voice.

“Why… why would he do that…”

Damien transferred his book and pen to one hand and looked serious.

“We’ll know more when we interview him. My colleagues, if they’re any good, have probably picked him up by now. But it’s my theory that he’s suffered a psychotic break, and is very possessive of you. When the two of you stopped filming together and you moved on to collaborating with other people, something in him snapped. He decided that… that your fans weren’t worthy to associate with you and only he deserved your attention. I realised last night that the common thread was that all the victims had met you in person.”

Mark rubbed his face with his hands a few times, and Damien looked away when he noticed tears streaming down his cheeks. He’d just lost three close friends, and had found out that one of them was a psychotic mass-murdering cannibal - he was entitled to weep.

 

Sergeant Logan returned to the room and spoke quietly to Damien.

“My best officers are enroute. They’ll find the bunker, and bring in the kidnappers.”

Damien nodded and then leaned back in his chair.

“Thank you, sergeant. You’ve been extremely helpful.”

Logan looked embarrassed and nodded.

“It’s our duty to protect our citizens… and my daughter is a big fan of Mark’s.”

He cleared his throat uncomfortably and moved away, and Damien looked back at Mark - he still had tears trickling down his face but he looked contemplative. Eventually he turned his head and addressed the detective.

“I’ve decided that I’m going to quit YouTube. If it makes my close friends act like this then how am I meant to trust anyone? It seems fitting that my career started and ended in a hospital bed, like a neat little circle.”

Damien looked down at his notes and then closed the book.   
“Can I tell you a story?”

He paused for a moment as though waiting for something. 

 

When Mark gave no reply either way Damien fixed his eyes on the cover of the closed book in his lap.

“When I was an idiotic teenager, I had something horrible happen to me. It’s a long complex story but the short version is a very close friend tried to kill me.” 

He paused and ran a thumb over the spine of the notebook.

“I was hospitalised for months. She’d shot me in the back and the doctors were doubtful I’d walk again… something to do with the nerves and I’m still not 100% back to what I was. I can’t drink, and I get these headaches sometimes… I lay there in a bed a lot like that, night after night, just thinking about life and times and wishing that the bullet had been a few inches to the right and had hit a vital organ instead of a rib and I’d died. Because it seemed like no matter what I tried to do, I was always going to be betrayed and hurt by people I thought I could trust. The heartbreak and betrayal was almost worse than the gunshot.”

He glanced at Mark and saw that he was focused on the floor next to the bed. 

 

Eventually Mark spoke up.

“So what made you start to trust people again?”

Damien looked up and nodded.

“Actually, it was joining the force. I managed to drag myself back into good physical form and entered the academy against all my doctors and various therapists wishes… they don’t tell you that it’s a bit like the army, where you have to learn to trust your fellow officers completely. No matter what, you learn they always have your back.”

He gave a half-hearted chuckle at his weak pun and nodded again.

“So don’t give up on us humans just yet. It’ll take a long time for you to heal from this, and an even longer time to trust someone else enough for intimacy… I’m still waiting for that to happen.”   
He laughed weakly again and looked down at the book in his hands again.

“Most people are inherently good and if you let them, they’ll support you no matter what you want to do. You have a large fan base that’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before. Everyone is kind to one another, and everyone helps and looks out for each other - because of you. You inspire them to be better, to strive for and achieve their own goals, to trust others and to do things that they never thought possible.” 

He paused again and ran his thumb over the spine of the notebook one more time.

“You might not be able to trust anyone ever again, but millions of people trust you to help them be better and their belief in you might be just as good and might inspire you to carry on through the darkness.”

 

The room was silent except for a loudly-ticking clock on the wall, and Damien looked at his watch: the officers should be returning soon with the kidnappers. He’d been hoping that he could sneak away and call Rebecca and Ray and check on their progress on finding Aaron before he had to go and interview Bob and Mandy, but for some reason he was reluctant to break the spell of that hospital room. Mark seemed less hopeless, somehow: it made Damien pleased to see him sit up and square his shoulders in determination. Even the room seemed lighter. Damien checked his phone and nodded to himself: things seemed to be moving nicely towards their conclusion.

 

*

 

Rebecca Johansen stood outside Interview Room One, a bead of sweat trickling down her neck. She wasn’t nervous, exactly… more on-edge than nervous. The detective had interviewed her fair share of killers - in her old precinct she’d been called ‘unshakeable’ and ‘bombproof’ for her cool handling of a number of murderers. The difference was, none of the people she’d questioned had been psychotic cannibalistic serial killers. She wiped at the sweat and squared her shoulders in an attempt to get herself under control. Ray came up quietly behind her unnoticed, and he made her jump.

“Do you want a drink of water?” 

She whirled to face him and then shook her head. He sipped from a mug of water and nodded.

“Good ‘cos this is mine… are you nervous?”

Rebecca shook her head again and Ray smiled.

“Then you can take the lead because I’m absolutely terrified. Did you hear how they found him?”

This time she was brave enough to speak.

“No… was it bad?”   
Ray’s face turned grave and he nodded.

“Apparently that nice tech girl tracked his phone’s GPS out to an abandoned house on the edge of the city and they stormed the place… they said he was elbow-deep in a corpse, cutting off chunks and eating them raw. When they cornered him he just stared at them and then came quietly with no fuss. I’d say his mind is completely gone, but I want to interview him before I call in a professional to officially make sure.”   
He finished his cup of water and glanced at Rebecca again. She frowned at her phone and then looked back at him.

“Should we call Damien? He’ll want to know what’s going on.”

Ray shrugged and put his cup down.

“We can do that after we interview this psycho. I’d rather have results to give him.”

He cracked his knuckles and entered Interview Room One without hesitation. Rebecca followed him before she had time to think, heading for one of the seats and getting situated before she let herself look at the man handcuffed and shackled to the steel interview table.

 

Aaron Ash was a normal young man who looked calm despite the heavy restraints on him - he wouldn’t have drawn a second glance out on the street, if it weren’t for the dried blood and miscellaneous fluids and chunks of offal that covered his clothing, hands, mouth, and even his hair. He eyes were fixed on his red flaky fingers, busily rubbing the dried blood off - he didn’t look up when the two cops entered the room, continuing his task silently and methodically as Rebecca got the recording equipment set up and Ray hovered as though unsure what to do with himself. 

“Alrighty. Detective Rebecca Johansen and Special Agent Ray Fleming. First interview with Aaron Ash, 1:34PM, Interview Room One. Hi Aaron, how are you?”

The young man was quiet for a long time, continuing to rub off the blood from his hands.

“Fine I guess…”

His voice was naturally soft, and Johansen pushed the microphone closer to him.   
“So we’re hoping you’re up to answering a couple of questions for us, if you can. About the, uh… little gifts you’ve been sending to Mark Fischbach.” 

At Mark’s name Aaron’s slow deliberate movements stopped and he raised his eyes to stare at Rebecca. She had to suppress a shiver: his wide brown eyes were terrifyingly intense and angry.

“You saw the gifts?? They were for Mark’s eyes only!”

Rebecca resisted the urge to lean back and instead folded her hands in front of her.

“We looked at them with his permission. So can you tell us who you were preparing for him when our officers brought you in?” 

Aaron started rubbing his hands again, wide brown eyes fixed unblinkingly on Rebecca, and simply said

“She was a fan of his. She didn’t deserve to be”.

Rebecca blinked slowly and decided that Ray was right, and he was probably completely insane.

 

Ray suddenly leaned forward across the table, surprising Rebecca a little.

“What was her name, Aaron?”

Aaron didn’t look away from Rebecca, still rubbing his hands.

“Are you a fan of Mark?”   
She returned his gaze evenly.

“No, Aaron. Please answer the question.”

Aaron’s gaze swung to Ray.

“I don’t remember her name. I found her on Instagram. She was not a good fan, she sent Mark naked pictures and he doesn’t want naked pictures. She didn’t deserve his attention… are you a fan of Mark?”

Ray shook his head and withdrew to loiter behind Rebecca again. The detective made some notes to give herself some breathing space, aware of that constant motion across the table. She looked up when she was done and engaged Aaron again.

“Aaron, what did you do with Teddy Hartman?”

There was slight flicker of his eyelids and then finally Aaron looked away, his mouth turning down in the corners in apparent anger and distaste. 

“He lied. He said he was a key part of the investigation.  _ He lied _ .”

The deranged man clenched his hands into fists, finally ceasing his repetitive motion, and slammed them onto the steel tabletop.

 

He breathed heavily through his nose, and Rebecca turned her head to look significantly at Ray before she refocused on Aaron.

“Did you kill him?”

Aaron’s shoulders slumped and he looked almost defeated, his hands visibly shaking.

“No… I punished him. He was a Markiplier fan but it was his fault that Mark was taken from me.”   
His body started to shake and he began to salivate, drool dripping at an alarming rate from his furious mouth and starting to froth as the previously quiet-spoken Brit’s thin grip on reality was lost and he worked himself up into frenzy.

“Him and his little sssslut of a partner Emily Griffiths…! They weren’t keeping an eye on Mark and now he’s gone! Bad fans!! Bad fans!! They don’t deserve him!!”

Rebecca prudently pulled her notes away from the tide of spit flying over the table and Ray came forwards again.

“Mr Ash please calm down.”   
But Aaron was too far gone to be called back, and rambled furiously about bad fans and how they needed to be taught a lesson. 

 

Rebecca closed her notes and leaned closer to the microphone.

“Ending the session, 1:46PM.” 

She turned off the recording equipment and removed the recording while Ray stepped out to call the hospital for a doctor to come for a consultation. Aaron had apparently calmed down, and was quietly watching Rebecca’s movements as she made more notes. 

“You think I’m insane, don’t you?”   
Rebecca glanced up at his soft words and then looked back at her notes.

“No but I do think you’re not well.”

Aaron suddenly lunged forwards across the table at her, but he was held back by the restraints and shackles. Rebecca jumped back and her chair slid backwards across the lino floor.

“I AM NOT CRAZY! It’s everyone else who can’t see what they’re doing is upsetting Mark!  _ I’m trying to protect him from people who want to hurt him! _ ”

Rebecca quietly closed her notebook and removed herself from the interview room. The man shackled to the heavy steel table continued to howl and rant and pull on his restraints until the doctor arrived. 

 

Rebecca returned to her desk, shaken: she’d interviewed a number of mentally ill folk in her time but the madness she’d seen in Aaron’s eyes was enough to make her need a few long, quiet breaths. 

“Detective Johansen…”

She looked up at the voice and gulped when she saw the chief standing at the edge of her desk. 

“Yes ma’am?”

The woman squinted at her and then beckoned with crooked fingers. Johansen got up and followed her into her office.

“Have a seat, Johansen. Try to relax.”

She sat in the squeaky brown vinyl seats, the type that had enjoyed a very brief period of popularity for exactly one week in June of 1974, and kept her face impassive as the chair predictably tooted. The chief, her back to Johansen, ignored it and the detective started wondering why she’d been summoned. 

“Here you go. Tomato juice, on the rocks.”

A glass full of red liquid was pushed into her hand and the chief threw herself into her chair (another piece of furniture that enjoyed a very brief period of popularity sometime during the 70s) with her meaty hand clasped around another glass.

“They’re always better with vodka in ‘em but it’s not worth my job to drink on the clock.” 

They sipped their juice in silence for a few seconds and then the chief put her glass down.

“I wanted to talk to you about this case you’re working. It was a pretty confronting situation in there, and I just wanted to touch base with you and check that you’re feeling ok.”   
She leaned forwards over the desk and looked at Rebecca.

“I take the health of my officers very seriously, and we haven’t really gotten to know each other yet.” 

Rebecca smiled at the chief: she was an abrasive woman but she really did care deep down. 

 

“I’m fine, chief. A little surprised, but I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t be surprised if a man lunged at them with no warning.”   
The chief sighed.

“He’s very ill, isn’t he Johansen?”   
Rebecca nodded again.

“Yeah. He’s completely gone, mentally. I think he was barely holding it together for a long time, but Mark being kidnapped was what broke him. That’s probably why we ended up catching him at all, he was completely consumed by his insanity and wasn’t being careful. Ray’s called the hospital for a doctor, hopefully they’ll be able to calm him down.”

At the mention of Ray’s name, the chief’s face hardened.

“Ah yeah.  Special Agen t Ray. He’s been… very helpful to you and Damien, hasn’t he?”

The chiefs tone of voice was strange and Rebecca frowned. The chief downed her juice and made a questioning gesture towards Rebecca’s glass: she shook her head and sipped the acidic liquid politely. 

  
  


The chief refilled her own glass and then frowned into it.

“Did you know Ray used to work for this department? He and Damien were partners when they were uniforms together.”   
Rebecca shook her head and the chief continued.

“They were promoted together, and assigned here. They worked a few murders, and then the pair of them workshopped an old unsolved case. They figured it out and the guy confessed, and the pair of them were noticed by the FBI. Both of them were offered positions in the bureau, but only Ray went: Damien stayed here because he said it was more honest. I don’t think Ray would have gone to the FBI if he’d known Damien was staying here.”

She made a face that spoke volumes about the rumored nature of their relationship.

“Not natural, if you ask me, but the department requires me to be tolerant of it… you should probably get back to work, I think I see Ray and the doctor” 

Rebecca knew when she was dismissed, and so she drained her glass and replaced it on the desk with a murmur of thanks.

 

The doctor was a short woman with a steely grey bob and bright coral lipstick on her teeth. She peered at Aaron through the two-way mirror: he’d faded from a full blown rage into angry muttering and rhythmically pulling on his restraints.

“So he’s confessed to killing and eating all those people?”

Ray nodded to her.

“Even if he hadn’t, six uniformed officers and two plainclothes detectives found him elbow-deep in a corpse eating chunks. It’s basically a slam-dunk case. For now we’re just concerned about him hurting himself.”

The doctor clucked her tongue between her coral-stained teeth and pushed her grey bob behind her ears. 

“I can administer a sedative if you’re done interviewing him and have him checked into the psychiatric ward of the hospital. A holding cell isn’t the safest place for him.”

Ray agreed and watched the short woman pull out a bottle of pills and then start preparing a hypodermic needle. She squeezed the air out of it and then put the cap back on, and glanced at Ray.    
“Just in case he won’t take the pills. I’ll need a glass of water and two of your officers to help.”

Ray waved at two of the officers who had taken part in the arrest and went to go and get a cup of water. The doctor took it with a nod of thanks, and walked into Interview Room One. 

 

Rebecca joined him at the two-way mirror and together they watched the doctor put some pills and the cup of water in front of Aaron. Ray glanced over at Rebecca.

“Did you and the chief have a nice chat?”   
Rebecca looked down at her shoes for a brief second, and Ray frowned: he’d known for a long time how the chief felt about him and he was saddened at the prospect that she’d turned Rebecca against him. He liked the detective, and he especially liked how well she worked with Damien. From what he’d seen the two of them fed easily off each others’ energy and she was more than capable of keeping up with him. 

“She was just making sure we’re alright. I didn’t know you and Damien were uniformed officers together.”   
Ray glanced at her again: she was focused on the scene in front of them, with the doctor trying to convince Aaron to take the pills. 

“Yeah, way back when. We actually knew each other as kids. I supported his decision to join the force when no one else would after his girlfriend shot him… you wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he was very close to being paraplegic. His doctors thought he’d never walk again simply because of the trauma. But we proved them wrong.”

He couldn’t stop the smile, and became aware that Rebecca looking at him knowingly. 

 

Inside the room, Aaron had taken the pills as the doctor requested and his furious muttering had subsided into a series of irritated groans and then nothing. He slumped over the table, a blank smile coming over his face, and a string of drool drained from his lips and pooled on the steel table. The officers helped him sit up and, unresisting, he allowed himself to be taken out of the room. The doctor rejoined the two cops with a sad expression.

“He’s completely lost, even a layman could see that. We might be able to work through the mania enough for him to stand trial, but it would be a very easy plea for insanity. My recommendation would be to push for permanent confinement to a secure psychiatric care facility without going to trial.” 

Ray nodded, and thanked the doctor for her help. She smiled at him and he tried not to focus on the bright spots of colour on her teeth. 

“We’ll take good care of him at the hospital, Special Agent.”

She nodded to Rebecca.

“Detective.”   
She followed her patient out, and Ray rubbed his face.

“I think I’m going to go and get something disgustingly deep fried, and then go to my hotel and sleep for about a year.” 

He stretched and turned to Rebecca, who was tooling about on her phone and hadn’t heard him.

“Damien’s brought in the kidnappers to the Cincinnati police HQ. Apparently the officers found them in a concrete bunker off some service road in the middle of the woods preparing to set the place on fire, but they were stopped just in time. He’s going to interview them there and then bring them back here for charging, which I think he wants you to take care of since the crime’s crossed state boundaries.” 

Ray sensed a mountain of paperwork in his immediate future, and winced, and then tried to escape it.

“Would you like to come and get something to eat with me and not discuss the case at all for five minutes?”

Rebecca looked up at him with consideration, and gave him one of her rare smiles.

“Sure.”

The pair left the room, heading downstairs together for the nearest place selling anything deep fried.

 

*

 

The precinct was noisier than LA, with busy detectives working from every desk. Damien sat alone in the breakroom with one hand resting around the cup of coffee that had been placed in front of him by an unremembered uniform, staring in its general direction into middle distance: he was so very, very tired. He was so tired his bones ached and his eyes were blurry. The detective was sure that his bloodstream was more caffeine than not, and not even the breakroom tar that was the sole focus of his attention could perk him up. He wanted this to be over.

“Detective?”   
  
He managed to rouse himself and focus on the young officer in front of him: she’d been the one who’d handed him the cup of breakroom tar, as far as he could remember. She had a bright young face and lots of curly red hair, and rather stunning icy blue eyes. 

“Yes?”

She smiled at him.

“You have a visitor.”   
Damien looked around: for half a second he thought it might have been Ray coming to back him up and his heart skipped a beat, but then he saw Mark Fischbach standing there on a pair of crutches and was oddly disappointed. 

“Mark, hi… can I interest you in a cup of whatever this is?”   
He gestured to the cup, looking into it as though puzzled by its existence, and Mark shook his head.

“Probably for the best, it’s more solid than liquid at this point. What can I do for you?”   
Mark set his jaw and looked Damien straight in the eye.

“I want to be part of the interviews with Bob and Mandy.”

Damien’s first instinct was to refuse: of course he couldn’t be, how would Damien explain it to the prosecutor? But something stopped him, and he looked at Mark slyly. If he were present in the room, Bob and Mandy might open up more than they would with just Damien. Slightly recklessly, Damien nodded.

“Alright, but you have stay quiet. You’re just here to observe, and if anyone asks you totally didn’t sit in.” 

Mark’s surprise was evident but he covered it quickly and followed Damien when the detective started to move. Suddenly his bones didn’t ache anymore. 

 

The interview room was smaller than the one in his department, a cosy little room with a table and three chairs, recording equipment and a two-way mirror set into one wall. Bob sat hunched over the table, his head in his hands, physically trying to shrink his bulk as though he could escape notice by being smaller. Damien opened the door and allowed Mark to hobble through ahead of him: the detective closed the door and moved one of the chairs into a corner for Mark. Bob raised his head and looked at Mark: there was a kind of pathetic terror in his eyes at the sight of his friend. 

 

Damien busied himself setting up the recording equipment and pretended not to notice. The two men looked at each other across the table: Mark searched Bob’s face, grappling with reality. Bob avoided looking at him and his mouth moved as though he were making silent excuses or apologies. His eyes, fixed on the table, took on a panicked pleading expression, and he looked up as though he were going to address Mark but Damien sat down.

“Now! Bob. You remember who I am, yeah? Detective Damien Scott Carter, of the LAPD. Please to re-meet you… ” 

He dropped his notebook onto the table with a loud slap and folded his hands onto it: it was a technique he’d picked up from his first commanding officer, and it always surprised people.

“So you met my new friends here in Cincinnati, aren’t they lovely? They found you out in a very interesting spot with your wife…”   
He paused and flipped through his notebook as though he needed to look something up: it was another tactic he’d picked up from his first C.O, and it seemed to put interviewees at ease. Damien decided to try a different tactic and closed the notebook.

“Why’d you do it, Bob?”

The man glanced at Mark again and then dropped his head, his hands clasped like he was praying. He looked broken, and said nothing. Damien slammed his fist onto the table.

“You kidnapped him? You set off a bomb that killed and injured hundreds of his fans, and drugged your best friend, and locked him in a prison?”

Bob raised his head and looked Damien in the eye.

“I didn’t set off the bomb. It was all for his own good.”

He snapped his mouth closed and then shook his head.

“I’m not saying anything else without a lawyer.”   
Damien closed his notebook and sighed heavily. 

“Alright. I’ll get someone to bring you to holding until they arrive.” 

The detective got up and took his notebook, heading out the door leaving Mark and Bob alone in the room.

 

Bob glanced at Mark and then dropped his gaze. Mark, for his part, continued to stare at Bob as though he’d be able to divine exactly what was going through the other man’s mind simply by looking long enough.

“I’m sorry, Mark.”

The voice was soft and defeated. Mark said nothing, letting the silence stretch like an elastic band until it was taut and ready to snap. 

“I wanted to protect you… from that sicko who was eating your fans and trying to get your attention. I just wanted what’s best for you.”   
His pathetic tone made Mark finally snap under the weight of all the shit people had been piling onto him.

“You don’t get to decide that, Bob. I’m not a child. You can’t seriously think that the best course of action was to lock me in a fucking concrete bunker?”

Bob’s head drooped further until he was practically face-down on the table.

“I was trying to do what’s best for you, to protect you from people who wanted to hurt you.”   
Mark managed to lunge to his feet, his broken leg temporarily forgotten in his anger.

“You! Hurt! Me! Bob!” 

He slammed his fists into the table as his magnificent voice rose to a crescendo and he searched his friends’ face when it came up in response. He couldn’t stop the crack that came into his voice.

“I thought of you like a brother. For fucks sake I was best man at your wedding!”

Bob closed his eyes and Mark saw a tear trickle down his cheek. 

“You  _ killed _ my fans with a bomb. You killed them, Bob! Don’t you know how fucked up that is? You literally murdered other people… because of me?” 

Bob shook his head.

“The bomb was Mandy’s idea, she did that whole thing not me. I just… she wanted to kill you too but I convinced her not to. I saved you Mark.”

Mark just looked hopelessly at his friend, disbelief written across his face. His leg throbbed and he collapsed back into the chair in the corner. 

 

Damien, who’d been watching intently through the two-way mirror, chose that moment to signal the uniforms on the outside of the room. They bustled in and took Bob back to holding, and Damien carried in a cup of water for Mark. He handed the cup of water to the other man and then went over to the recording device. He turned it off and took the tape out.

“Thanks…”   
Mark’s voice was flat. He was staring at the cup like it contained his entire world, cradling it delicately and watching the water move and settle with his motions. Damien spent some time putting the tape into a case, labelling it and carefully put it into his pocket. He knew Mark hadn’t meant the cup of water, and said nothing.

 

One of the uniforms, the pretty redhead from before, poked her head in.

“Detective? Mandy is in Interview Room Two. You were right, her husband told her not to say anything on the way past.”   
Damien thanked her and then glanced at Mark.

“Think you can face doing two of them?”   
Mark drained the cup of water and put the cup down, picking up his crutches. His face was sad but determined.

“Let’s do it.”

The redheaded detective took the cup from Mark and led the pair of them to the other interview room. Damien repeated the steps they’d tried with Bob, holding the door open for Mark to hobble through and then moving over to help him sit. The few glances he stole at Mandy showed that she was staring at Mark with the complete opposite expression that her husband had had. Her gaze was intense with anger and hatred, and Damien wondered if the same approach was going to work as he set up and started the recording. Before he could even speak, even sit down, Mandy fixed the detective with an icy stare.

“What’s  he doing here?”   
Damien glanced back at Mark and shrugged, taking a seat across from her. 

“He’s assisting me. I thought you might feel more comfortable with someone you know in the room.”   
She crossed her arms.

“Assisting you? That doofus? He couldn’t even help himself to a proper job.”

Damien sensed an in.

“So you don’t approved of YouTubers? I’m glad someone else feels that way, I just don’t see the value of some idiot filming themselves screaming at video games.”

Mandy’s body language immediately shifted: she uncrossed her arms and leaned forwards. 

“My husband and this idiot think it’s an actual career. As far as I’m concerned, they need  _ real _ jobs.”   
Mark made spluttering noises about YouTube being a real job behind Damien, but Damien didn’t look around.

“How can that kind of thing be an actual career? Surely your husband understands that.”   
Mandy nods.

“He says he does but  _ this one _ keeps encouraging him to goof off and make stupid videos. I hate him so much - I hate you, Mark.”   
Damien nodded sagely, looking down at his notebook. 

“So… if you hate him so much, why did you help kidnap him?”   
She pursed her lips and Damien wondered if he’d pushed too far, but eventually she spoke again.

“Because I’d hoped that it would force Mark to stop making videos. Without his videos, his so-called fans would come back to the real world and actually be functional members of society… I didn’t know Bob had stolen his computer. That was the complete opposite of what I was trying to achieve and Bob knew that.”

She fell silent and continued to glare at Mark coldly. 

 

Damien made a bunch of notes, mostly gibberish, to try and get Mandy to say more while he was obviously distracted - but she apparently realised that she’d said too much on record already and continued to just sit and glare.

“I didn’t know you hated me.”

Mark’s voice from behind Damien was soft. Mandy sighed angrily and crossed her arms again.

“Of course I hate you. Do you know how hard it is to be married to someone who’s in love with their best friend?”

Damien felt a small pang but continued to write, listening intently to the discussion. Mark’s voice was deeper than normal, making him sound more serious.

“Bob said that you were the one who built the VidCon bomb.”   
Mandy leaned forwards, her face twisting with disgust.

“Yeah, and?” 

Mark made a sad choking noise.

“You killed…  so many people! You don’t even care??”

Damien could see the sneer on Mandy’s face.

“They were just YouTube fans. They weren’t going to do anything important with their lives anyway. It was so _easy_. ”

Damien was unable to resist looking up at Mandy at this point in disbelief: she had a superior look, anger tight around her eyes, and a finger tapped out an irritated rhythm on her crossed arms. It always amazed him just how far people would go for their ideals. He stopped the recording and put it away, closing his notebook and nodding to Mandy.

“I’ll have someone take you to holding and then we’ll get you onto a plane. We gotta go back to L.A to charge you, since the original kidnapping to place there.” 

He held the door open for Mark and nodded to Mandy.

“Thank you for your candor. It’s been very enlightening.”

The look on her face was almost worth it when he shut the door.

 

The pair regrouped in the break room: this time Mark didn’t refuse the cup of tar. Damien sipped at his own brew and carefully watched Mark. He looked sad and confused. 

“Will you be coming back to L.A?”   
Mark looked up and then shook his head.

“I’ll be taking a break to try and get myself right.”   
He looked wryly down at his broken leg.

“And get this thing healed up.”   
Mark took a sip of the coffee and made a face, making Damien chuckle. 

“But… I’ve decided not to give up on YouTube just yet. You really inspired me.”

The two of them awkwardly finished their cups of ‘coffee’ and Damien helped Mark out to the front of the station where his mother was waiting.

  
Mark’s mother was a stern, tiny lady who’d been reading the old magazines the police department waiting room. When her son appeared she sprang to her feet and started scolding Damien. He stood meekly enduring her words, and then out of the blue she hugged him.

“Thank you.”   
It was only two words, but it made all the sleepless nights and headaches and stress worth it. She let him go and he nodded.   
“It’s my job, ma’am.”

He waved as they left, and then felt around for his phone. There was a text message from Ray and his heart skipped a beat - it was just some meaningless text message about he and Rebecca having a successful interview with Aaron Ash and how they’d then gone out for pizza, but it made him unquestionably happy. He missed the pair of them and he couldn’t wait to get home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's it, I guess. That's as much as I've written. I could continue if you're interested but I feel like I have nothing more to say on this story... 
> 
> Aaron is confined to a secure psychiatric ward for the rest of his life with no charges officially laid.   
> Bob and Mandy were imprisoned on life sentences (Bob had a lesser sentence since Mandy took complete responsibility for the VidCon bombing and he was only charged with kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment).   
> Mark eventually went back to producing content for YouTube and remained the bubbly personality we all know and love.
> 
> The most I could put out is a short epilogue detailing what happened to the characters after the case was closed - I doubt it would be very interesting but it's up to you, the readers.
> 
> Thank you so, SO much for reading. This story has been a huge part of my life for just under two years (give or take a few months hiatus) and I'm absolutely going to miss it - I may have had a little cry about it. I am working on a very trashy semi-related story set after the events of the Markithriller, but it's Septiplier shipper trash and therefore I would recommend that absolutely no-one read it. 
> 
> Some extra special thanks to Asher_Gryphon: you always commented and it always makes me smile when I see your username. I'm going to miss you :3
> 
> <3 Isabelle (Shy_Fox)


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